Trying to pin them down

[duckweed]

I had an email which suggested that a Saley White was born in Bishops House. The problem is that the only time the house is actually named is in the

1891 census, the house numbers being 45, 46 (the house was made into 2 dwellings and next door to it is Whites Farm No. 48,
then there is Joseph Aldersons House (a big house later called West House now a block of flats)
and then 50 Norton Lees Road Lees, House home of the Cockaynes, big house round the corner.

Then in the opposite direction
1881 We have Sarah Priest widow at 52
John Gillott at 53
Walter Swift 54
Thomas Gillott 55
James White 56
57 Lees Hall Cottage
58 Carrfield Farm

1871 75 James Duckworth Coach man
76 Isaac and Sarah Priest
77 James White
78 John Harrison
79 John Gillott


1861 137 Sarah Parker (big house)
138 James Duckworth Coachman
139 Isaac Priest and wife
140 Robert Gillott
141 John Harrison
142 the White family with Joseph as head
143 Bowen
144 Cockayne Lees House

1851

92 Robert Gillott
93 Cavill
94 White Family
95 Cockayne Lees House
96 Sam Johnson


You can see my problem.

The 1849 sale of the estate has the Whites as Tennants of the Bishops House Farm but whether they had the house is unclear on the plan. They certainly aren't there in 1891 as the house was sold in about 1886 to Sheffield Corporation as part of the park. There is a drawing of Whites Farm house in 1912 but it is only a fragment of a house. I think it may be the house called Mulberry Cottage now. which is actually 2 houses down from Bishops House, the next house would have been Lees House but it was demolished and is now several modern houses still within the old walls and a bungalow at the corner nearest Mulberry Cottage.

My thought is the legend is true, unfortunately her birth certificate and baptismal details only say Norton Lees.

 

[leefer]

Coachman..........DUCKWORTH........Duckweed it is halloween and that is spooky.
Seriously though as you say you are so near..but so far.

 

[duckweed]

Thought I'd look up Father in 1841 as James was in Whiston Rotherham. It is even less help as it just says Norton Lees nothing else at all. I know it is going in the direction to where Lees Hall would be but no family Cockayne to show where House was (maybe it wasn't built then).

 

[leefer]

http://genforum.genealogy.com/cockayne/messages/115.html

800 year lease!..a little optimistic.

 

[duckweed]

So he wasn't always at Lees House. Thorpe House is even trickier as Thorpe cottages are next to Bishops House but Thorpe House appears to have been in 2 places as there have been 2 Thorpe Houses on the land roughly neighbouring BH. I shall have to look up a few old maps and see if I can't nail this thing. I would just like to be able to offer these Whites descendants documentary proof as well as it will make interesting story board in BH as we have a photo of Saley and a photo of her mother. A book in 1912 describes Farmer White as being the last farmer to wear a smock, and using colourful language when he found lads playing cricket in his fields.

 

[leefer]

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/cockayne-dr-leonard-cmg-frs/1

Slightly off track Duckweed....seems the youngest of the Cockaynes did well for himself.

 

[duckweed]

I am still confused. Cockaynes of Thorpe House were definitely there in 1872. I think Sarah Parkers House was Cliffe Field. If that's so Lees House was a relative newcomer to this area, (Not to be confused with Lees Hall which is further up the hill)The 1881 census has Lees Hall cottages. There are none of that name on Norton Lees Lane so think that must be Bishops House (sometimes called Old Hall in Lees) Old postcard lists Bishops House as Bishops Cottages. So that would mean the Whites were living next door to Bishops House, unless the ennumerator was referring to Thorpe Cottages as Lees Hall cottages.

If Mulberry Cottage was Whites Farm, according to Deeds from owner it only became house in 1846 so could not have been Whites farm then. They would have to be living in Bishops House or Thorpe Cottages as only dwelling places at time. (Mulberry cottage is an extremely old building but has been extended and renovated, my theory is that it was a barn or similar converted in 1846 due to lack of suitable housing.

Theory with White descendant is that he moved out of Bishops House when the house was put up for sale in 1850 but BH doesn't appear to have been sold at that time it was bought by the owners of Meersbrook Estate from their nephew. A legal way of keeping the farm with the estate so the receiver did not put it on the market. So he had no reason to move except that he was offered a better house.

 

[leefer]

As you said before Duckweed it is all very confusing...mainly due to conflicting dates....veryfying the truth is the hard part.
It is a massive jigsaw and i feel you still have many pieces to fit in before the jigsaw is finished....keep up the good work.

 

[leefer]

http://www.chrishobbs.com/marples1940.htm

Good read Duckweed......terrible that 70 people were killed in one deadly blow.

As for the Cockayne shop in Sheffield seems it went from a small drapers to one of the best stores in the north of England.evenyually becoming Scofields?

 

[gibbo]

Hi DW,
Been going through the papers with names and places you have on here and cant find much, was hoping that something might pop up that might help.

I did find a mention of Cliffe Field in a death notice for 1888. But dont think its any use for you, posted it here anyway.

The Times Thursday May 10 1888
At his residence, Cliffe Field, Norton Lees, Sheffield, John Ryalls, solicitor aged 84 years.

 

[duckweed]

The biggest problem is that there were no real roads just a lane that meandered and the shape of that altered from decade to decade. Then as Sheffield encroached on Derbyshire parts of Norton Lees were labelled Meersbrook Bank. Meersbrook and sometimes even Heeley in census records. Till the 1850s when some of the estate was sold off and more houses started being built the area was more a collection of farms and old manor houses. Even then the top half was not developed much till the park was opened in 1890.

 

[duckweed]

Cockaynes started as flax dressers and breech makers. They had a business in Angel Street (not much of the original is there due to bombs obliterating all the buildings.) William Cockayne gave land and money to the church so they could build St Pauls Norton Lees which is just above what was Lees House.

Just across the road from Bishops House they built a house called the Hollies which was linked with a farm. It was sold in about 1929 and the site was developed by Lavers building mock tudor houses of the type all over Britain with art decco leaded glass and bay windows. The House called Thorpe house also went and that land was developed by Lavers and the estate became known as Hollythorpe Estate. Our house is one of the many houses Laver built on the site of the Hollies. Next to Bishops House they built West House which had tennis courts stables etc. That was also sold in the 1920s and they built a row of mock tudor down the side of the park (but still has the old footpath between) and there is a big house still there but not sure if it was built since because it does not seem big enough and at its back is a square flat roofed block of flats. Beside the big house is Mulberry cottage which would seem to be the cottage described in the West House Sale plan and then they are more rows of the mock tudor housing. There are the occasional older house which obviously was there before this development and there are some quite grand victorian and Edwardian houses on the Right hand side of the park and Carrfield Farm (which is mainly allottments) which goes back to the time before Bishops House was built but unfortunately the early buildings are long gone.

 

[leefer]

I used to deliver to Lavers..big timber yard close to the football club in Bramall Lane..vividly remember the yellow paint they use as a sort of trademark.
Also see that Cockayne helped with the church(St Marks?) in Heely..in fact laid the foundation stone and helped start the Sunday school up there.
Its easy to forget that for them every thing was new and expanding....progress.
We look back..........they were looking forward.

 

[duckweed]

Lavers still have huge building next to Bramall Lane, Timber Yard has moved but still very big business. The Laver who built the house was brother to the one who set up the timber business.

 

[leefer]

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/o/n/Derrick-Connolly/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0005.html

Well others seen to think Saley White was born in Bishops House....though as you know these sites are a bit hit and miss Duckweed.

So does that mean that James White and Sally Mitchell was living there at the time...must do i suppose if the info is correct.

 

[leefer]

The more i look at the history of the families i wonder why Saley White was born in Bishops House.

 

[duckweed]

What makes you think that?
Bishops House and land was rented out after Samuel Blythe died.


By all accounts the Norton Lees lands were good dairy farming land. Saley married a Hoyland and they ran Ash Farm another dairy farm not far away. Saleys Grandmother was from Mosborough where her family were also dairy farmers. It says in some family trees that the grandmother was born in Mosborough Hall but there really is no evidence of that as it was the home of the Rotherhams and Salleys brother was definitely farming in West Mosborough not the Halls estate not even the Grange.

Saleys Grandfather was there in 1841. The Tennants of Bishops House in the early 1800s as far as I can tell were a George and Thomas Wilde but they don't seem to lease as many fields as the Whites. The land was divided up between the Wilds and the Lowes. I can't find much about them as yet.I think the Wilds would be living in Bishops House at that time.

 

[leefer]

Well looking at the families they seem to be fairly poor...and for some reason i imagined that people born in Bishops House would be a little more higher up in life so to say..also Saley seems to be the only one..........but now you have explained about the House being leased out it makes more sense to me.

 

[duckweed]

That is the mystery of Bishops House. It seems very small to be connected with such important families and so much money. It is according to some experts, quite expensively put together with plaster rather than wattle and daub, and the wills of the Blythes prove they did live there if you look at the inventories.

The furniture is plentiful, there were curtains, carpets, and panelling and a beautifully carved oak fireplace and several fireplaces and windows so not exactly the usual Yeoman farmers house. There was pewter, glasses and silverware enough to entertain 14 people. Leather padded chairs for the adults and small padded stools for the children.

Originally it was built as a medieval hall with a Hall and a Kitchen and at one end the Buttery (for the wine butts) and a parlour and above that two chambers. Eventually they had 5 chambers upstairs, 3 were probably bedrooms, 1 a store room, downstairs they had a cellar a little parlour, a great parlour, and the Buttery and the Hall and Kitchen.

However the size of the house is on a par with a modern 3-4 bedroomed detached house. Nearly all the other surviving tudor yeoman farmhouses are much bigger than Bishops House.

 

[leefer]

Has it still got the old wood carving from the 1600's?

WB.....read the Kellys book from the 18th century for Norton...presume the initials on the old oak carving was for William Blythe.