Owler Bar
Peacock Inn, about 1913
One winter's night in February 1886, Charles Hodkin, a 76-year-old herbalist from Pyebank, Sheffield, set off on foot to visit his sister who lived in Froggatt village. He reached the Peacock Inn, Owler Bar, just as a snowstorm began to sweep the desolate moorland. In those days there was a pack-horse track direct across Big Moor to Froggatt Edge which was several miles shorter than the turnpike road. Mr. Hodkin took refreshment at the Inn and then, as night was falling, he decided to continue with his journey despite protests from the landlord, William Brougham, who could see he was tired. So the old man set off into the storm and nothing was heard of him until John Slack, one of the Duke of Rutland's shepherds, found his body two years later. Mr. Hodkin had strayed several miles off his track and must have stumbled around through the snowdrifts and bogs of Big Moor for hours.
Such was life in the 1880s. How many young men would think of walking from Sheffield to Froggatt these days? The area around Owler Bar hasn't really changed much since the 1880s apart from new wider roads and a small motel. In the height of winter it is still one of the most inhospitable places on earth. The transition from bridle paths to turnpikes served only to speed people a little more comfortably on their journey, but at the cost of paying tolls to use those routes.
The Owler Bar area is rich in history, for within a few hundred yards of the Inn there is much evidence of a bronze age settlement dating back some 3,500 years. Excavated urns from Big Moor are to be seen in Weston Park Museum. The name 'Owler' is said to be derived from Oulder, Aulder and Alder (the tree); within a mile from here is an area called Oulder Lee. G.H.B. Ward who lived nearby and edited the Clarion Ramblers Handbook (a mine of information on the Totley area), reckoned that the name Owler Bar was derived from the use of an Alder tree trunk which served as the catchbar at the Toll Gate.
The original Toll Bar seems to have been built sometime after 1781 and was situated near the present site of the 'Fiveways' Motel. Around this time the Peacock was built too, although in a much older style, by the Duke of Rutland. The later toll bar cottage was built around 1820 and still stands below the Peacock.
By then the turnpike road from Baslow to Sheffield was just about completed and in October 1821, the Owler Bar was one of the tolls advertised to be let.
Another Totley Toll Bar was opposite the top of Mickley Lane.
G.H.B. Ward gives over 30 pages of notes about Owler Bar in the 1929 Handbook having had discussions with James Wragg who was then (1929) 78 and had spent his youth in the Toll Bar Cottage, where his father was the Toll Keeper. Mr. Wragg walked 7½ miles to work in Sheffield each day and then 12 hours later he walked back, 6 days a week.
One night, some toll-dodgers slipped through in a carriage and pair without paying. The young Wragg, a member of the Harriers, gave chase and eventually came up with the gig at Moore's Livery Yard in Elden Street (off the Moor) before they had taken the horse out of the shafts. Mr. Moore, the horse and cab proprietor, who had hired out the conveyance, then took their names and addresses and they were later fined heavily.
Prior to the Dore and Chinley Railway opening up in 1894, it was quite common to hire a pony and trap for a drive into Derbyshire on a Sunday afternoon. In the 1860’s Owler Bar was famous for its horse trotting races. The landlord of the Peacock at that time was William Coates who owned a famous trotting horse called 'Blazing Bob'. One day it was driven from Owler Bar to Manchester and back and ten minutes after its return dropped dead. 'Blazing Bob’ had some twice earlier trotted a measured mile in 3 minutes. These races seemed to have died out in about 1898 when they were deemed to be a danger to the public.
Near to Owler Bar prize fighting took place in those days and the early morning scraps would draw a crowd of several hundred. The last toll was taken at Owler Bar in 1888. That midnight a wagon full of drunks went up from Holmesfield and burnt a straw effigy of the unpopular toll collector.
The Peacock Inn was a noted coaching house and in the late 1800s two stage coaches to Matlock and Buxton changed their horses at the hostelry. One coach painted yellow was known as 'Enterprise' and was driven through Bakewell by a Mr. Ashmore while the other was a red coach called 'Lucy Long' driven to Buxton by a Mr. Sims.
The Peacock Hotel was at first run by yet another Green, other landlords were William 'Humpy' Hattersley, William Wail Coates in the 1860’s, his widow Mrs. Coates and Mr. Frederick Armitage who married her. In 1884 the Brougham family moved in, William staying there until his death in 1903 when his widow Anne took over until 1923. That year, John Hutchinson Brougham, the son, took over and older residents will still remember him. John bought the Peacock from the Duke of Rutland in 1927.
Totley Independent
November 1977