Sheffield Clarion Ramblers Booklet,
1931-32
More about Totley and Ringinglow. (pages 157-160)
The Honest Totley Tollbar Keeper—Green Oak.
Readers of the 1924 issue of this booklet will remember the article on “Totley, Totley Rise and Totley Moss” and (page 96) a reference to Green Oak House and the older cottage almost behind it which, many years ago, was the “Green Oak Inn.” Both stand opposite the present junction of Mickley Lane with the Sheffield-Baslow main road.
(1). The Death of “Green Oak” Place Name.
The junction of Mickley Lane with the main road to Baslow, probably before the “catch” tollbar was thought of, was about 100 yards higher up— at the gate and end of the row of old oak trees beside the entrance to the Totley Labour Hall (“Green Oak Hall”) and lock-up shops, built in 1925. Totley villadom is not finished, but already the trees, with one exception, are gone, and a few will remember and the others forget. Three trees were executed in the fall of 1926, to make way for semi-detached breeze-block houses ; others went a little later, and, to-day (January, 1931), the builders are erecting a Co-operative Store and another private shop to keep it company. The line of the old sunken bridle way can now be imagined by taking a line from the surviving tree in front of (North side) the top house in Mickley Lane and the front of Totley Labour Hall, and the old native can say that the glory'of Green Oak place name is gone.
A few yards West of it, on the same (N.) side of the main road, and until 1928 in the S.E. corner of the one still vacant “eligible building plot” on the misnamed “Heatherfield” Estate of post-war villas, which occupies the site of six of the best tilled fields in Totley, stands a low stone building which, during the erection of these villa residences—from 1916 onwards— was used as a tool house, etc. It stood almost opposite the original end of Mickley Lane and, years ago, was a turnpike road catch-bar for traffic coming from Dronfield and Dronfield Woodhouse. This old catch-bar was pulled down when Green Oak House was transformed and “developed” into three shops and an incongruous patch of brick, wood, and stucco was added to the house—the last shop being almost on the site of the old “catch bar.”
Mr. Horatio Taylor, of Totley, tells me the story of a tollkeeper called “Owd Thompson” who, perhaps over fifty years ago, “kept” this tollbar, and had the reputation of being an honest man. It is said that, somehow or other, he “couldn’t mak’ booath ends meet, an’ tee 'em together,” and so, in his best manner, he “axed 'is boss ter spring a bit mooar brass.”
His boss listened to the plaint and then said : “Well, you’ve all t' takkin’s of all what cums thro’ 'ere, 'av’n’t yer ?"—meaning that tin* tollbar keeper did not miss any of the tolls.
“Owd” Thompson duly admitted that he did not let anyone drive through without paying the legal toll.
“Then,” replied his boss, “thar’t t’ only cat 'at ivver Ah 'eeard on 'at were known ter starve i’ a full pantry.”
The Ringinglow Rose-Grower and the Curate.
Readers who possess a copy of the 1922 booklet will remember my story of the Ringinglow coal mines and the famous family of Trotter, and that Hiram Trotter, followed by his widow, was the last of this family of miners to reside in the facetiously-named mansion of “two storey lengthwise”—Moorcock Hall. This “Hall,” until 1911, stood a few yards West of the culvert bridge on the Ankirk road at Ringinglow, on the North bank of the streamlet, near the North end of the croft at Mr. Priest’s “Moorcot” house by the roadside.
Hiram Trotter, in addition to having as many as 100 bee hives in his care during the summer time—“at a shilling a time”—was a noted local grower of roses, every one of which, like the garden potato, must have a high-sounding name.
The following story, which happened over 40 years ago, was told to me by Mr. H. Taylor, the Totley stone mason. The Rev. J. T. F. Aldred, the well-known Victorian Vicar of Dore, had four sons, named Philip, Shirley, John and Christian, and one day the four young men paid a visit to “Moorcock Hall” and bought a score of roses. Hiram duly gave the name to each rose, and doubtless wrote it on the label, and tied the label on each shoot—“Queen Alexandra,” “Duke of York” and the rest of ’em sort of thing !
Hiram, after completing the bargain, said “Here’s one for luck,” but when tile quartette were proceeding down “The Long Line” road, towards Dore village, one of them bethought himself that the twenty-first rose had no name or label. This would never do, and so the three persuaded Christian, who was a curate, to return and ask Hiram to baptise it for them.
Christian did as he was told, and, says Hiram : “Well. It’s a bit of a ---. Ah’ve christened twenty on ’em for yer misen, an’ tha reckons ter be a parson an' can't Christen one on ’em thisen ! It s a bit off, isn't it ? "
The "Boss" who was “Particular ”
Another story told to me by an old Totleyite is that Hiram Trotter, while working for Mr. Sam, or Mr. Henry, Hancock, who worked the Brown Edge slate quarry (abandoned about 1892), about half-a-mile West of Ringinglow, was erecting a stone fowl house at Brown Edge Farm, near the old quarry, when Hancock came along and told him to pull down part of his work because, said he, “tha ’asn’t put t’ dooar ’oil in, an’ t’ fowls can’t ger inside it! ”
Hiram, nothing daunted, then reminded his boss that, only a short time previously, he was doing a piece of work for his employer, and that, in this job, “tha worn’t perticler to a yard or two, an’ nah thar't grumblin' abaht a bit of a fowl ’oil.”
Totley Cross.
In the 1924 issue I stated that well within living memory the base of Totley Cross stood a few yards down Summer Lane—on the right of the main road, a few yards beyond Cross Scythes Inn—and at the low side of the gate-entrance to Cross Grove House, in Summer Lane. It was also stated that the base of the Cross had three steps to it and was about 2' 6" square, and morticed, but shaftless, and that the stones seemed to have disappeared, about the time Mr. Bown modernised and extended Cross Grove House. Otherwise, we could probably compare it with the base of the Cross (and shaft) which now stands in the Wall corner by the road from Bradway to Holmesficld, behind Upper Bradway Farm, and assume that, like the latter, it was erected at a bridle way junction, by the Canons of Beauchief Abbey.
Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Milner, of Totley Hall, subsequently informed me that the remains of the Totley Cross were covered about 45 years ago, when Mr. W. E. Bown, a late proprietor of Cross Scythes Inn, altered the entrance to this house, and that the stones are now buried behind the boundary wall of the garden of this house.
So much for the rural publican's reverence for a mediaeval relic, and the lack of public interest in the question !
Trickling Hole.
In the 1924 issue, page 98, I referred to the “Tickling Hole” (a place name on the 6-inch to mile map), a trial drift hole, said to have been used chiefly to supply water for the ponds of the pre-1836 Brick Kiln, on Hollin Hill, North of the present Totley Brickyard, and situated just below the Duke’s Drive (under Brown Edge), above the Brickyard, and between the Drive and the top field wall.
I now learn that its proper name is Trickling Hole— from the water trickling out of the Hole. So we will correct another of the many misspelt place-names on the 6-inch to mile maps of the district.
G.H.B. WARD.