Burngreave, United Kingdom

In the 15th century and 16th century, Burngreave was an area of open countryside with scattered farms, fields and woodland. The name Burngreave was first recorded in 1440 as Byron Greve, meaning Bryons Wood. This is shown in early maps on the site currently occupied by Burngreave Cemetery and along Burngreave Road. During the Tudor period Sheffield began to grow but Burngreave remained on the outskirts. Looking back from the top of Pitsmoor at that time, you would have seen rolling hills and farmland leading down to Lady's Bridge where a cluster of shops and houses had developed around the market place next to Sheffield Castle.

During the 18th century and 19th century the area remained still largely rural but industry was beginning to have an impact. In the 1820s the town of Sheffield stopped at the Wicker, below Spital Hill. Pitsmoor was just a hamlet through which the main turnpike road ran from Sheffield to Barnsley and Wakefield. Industry in the area was mostly in the form of small workshops, attached to farm buildings, producing knives and tools for a local market. There were no factories as yet. Maps from the 1830s and 40s show farmsteads, fields, some woodland and a few scattered mansions that belonged to the wealthy elite of Sheffield. At this time Burngreave was considered a highly desirable place for rich families to build new homes in. Mansions such as Osgathorpe House and Firs Hill (both now demolished) were built during this period.

By 1870 a dramatic transformation had taken place. The arrival of heavy steel and engineering industries, concentrated in the Don Valley, created jobs for migrant workers from all over England and as far away as Ireland. Development of the railways and roads also contributed to the expansion of Sheffield as a centre for craftsmanship and industry.

Between 1820 and 1860 the population of Sheffield tripled from just over 65,000 to 185,000. In Burngreave many new houses including a group of cottages built by William Pass and occupied by miners called Pass-houses (now this location is called Passhouses Road), to accommodate the workforce of nearby industries. These were often terraced or constructed around courts and changed the character of the area completely. Neighbourhoods such as Ellesmere and Woodside became established. In the 1870s the writer Alfred Gatty described the view from Osgathorpe down into the Don Valley: “….there stands, as it were, Dante's city of Dis…masses of buildings, from the tops of which issue fire, and smoke, and steam, which cloud the whole scene, however bright the sunshine.” A drawing from 1879 of John Sorbys Spital Hill steel works captures this atmosphere completely.

Despite this grim picture of development, the higher part of Burngreave was far enough away from the noise and pollution to remain popular with Sheffield's industrialists and professional classes. Abbeyfield House was built during the late 19th century by William Pass as his own residence. Originally called Pitsmoor Abbey, it first belonged to William Pass, the owner of a local colliery, then the house was bought by a solicitor, Bernard Wake, who turned it into the family home. He altered the house greatly, adding a sundial, conservatory, greenhouses, a tennis court and outhouses. The gardens were redesigned and a boating lake created around 1883. In the early 20th century Abbeyfield House was occupied by the Greenwood family and then into the possession of the Sheffield Parks Department Training Centre.

By the late 19th century much of the former countryside of Burngreave was covered in houses. Along with these were created the Vestry Hall in 1864 to administer civic functions. Schools, churches, pubs and allotments were also created in the 19th century. The first school, Pitsmoor Village School, was opened in 1836. In 1861 Burngreave cemetery was laid out to accommodate the overflow from local church yards as these were full. A cinema and public baths were built in the early 20th century. By this time, Burngreave was a suburb of Sheffield, still prosperous and considered a pleasant place to live. It did, however, have an interesting mix of wealthy and working class residents. Occasional declines in the fortunes of the cutlery trade resulted in periods of unemployment and great hardship for many poorer families in the area. A cartoon from a newspaper in 1879 shows a soup kitchen operating from the Vestry Hall, turning away barefoot and hungry children.