Along the old Duke's Road

This week we met outside the Plough in Low Bradfield to the north of Sheffield.

We would be returning here for some of its excellent Farmer's Blonde ale - but more of that anon; we had a twelve and a half mile hike before we were allowed such refreshment!


Dave, our leader today, marched us up to High Bradfield - it was formerly known as Kirkton - and here he gave us a potted history of the villlage including how it grew up around the church and the motte and bailey castle (see last week's blog for details of motte and bailey castles)

The parish church, St Nicholas Church, is in the Gothic Perpendicular style and dates from the 1480s. It incorporates elements of an earlier church that may have been built in the 12th century.

This unusual building is the Watch House - it was built in 1745 to allow relatives of the deceased to watch over the graveyard and apprehend body snatchers. Very few other buildings of this type now exist in Britain. In the 18th century, newly buried bodies risked being disinterred to be sold to medical schools for the study of anatomy. As stealing a corpse was only punishable by a fine or imprisonment, rather than transportation or execution, body snatchers found it sufficiently profitable to run the risk. The Anatomy Act of 1832 ended the trade by allowing bodies to be donated to medical schools.

View over Low Bradfield from St Nicholas's Church

Agden Reservoir - on route to The Duke's Road

The track is named after the Duke of Norfolk, who owned large parcels of land in this area. It is likely the track was used to allow access for grouse shooting, although it probably followed an earlier ancient route over the moors. G.H.B Ward, the well-known Sheffield rambler, once described the walk over the Duke of Norfolk’s road as the ‘wildest Yorkshire moorland walk south of Wharfedale.’ 

It was also the scene of a mass trespass in September 1932, when 200 ramblers walked from Bradfield to Abbey Brook in protest against the lack of public access to the moors. Since the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, there has been open access to much of the moor

Dave had forewarned us that the going would be a bit boggy at times ...

... but it also got a bit foggy

After a brief lunch in the shelter of some weathered rocks we headed towards Derwent Edge

Chris considered whether he should leap, gazelle-like, across this ravine to the trig point at Back Tor - but decided against it

Andy found a much safer route to the trig point - flush bracket number 2145 and joint 471st in the "triggy charts" for those of you with an interest in such matters

Dave needed a quick check that we were still on course ...

... and he reliably told us as we turned east back towards Bradfield that "it was all downhill from here"

Strines reservoir which was constructed in 1871. It is the smallest of the reservoirs in Bradfield Dale with a capacity of 453 million gallons. The name Strines may derive from the Old English word ‘strynds’ or ‘strinds’, meaning a rivulet or stream

Boot's Folly, also known occasionally as Strines Tower or Sugworth Tower, overlooks Strines reservoir. It was constructed in 1927 by Charles Boot who resided at nearby Sugworth Hall. The 45-foot-high square tower with castellated top and flag pole was built from left over stone when the nearby Bents House was constructed. The Folly was constructed to provide work for Sugworth Hall’s workmen during The Depression. Today the interior is bare but it originally had wood panelling and a spiral staircase, the staircase was removed some years ago after a cow climbed the stairs and became stuck.

Then on to Dale Dike reservoir - site of the Great Sheffield Flood

In 1864, the newly-built dam burst, causing the Great Sheffield Flood, which caused massive damage downstream along the rivers Loxley and Don and through the centre of Sheffield. Around 250 people lost their lives. The dam was rebuilt in 1875 on a smaller scale and holds 446 million gallons of water. Below the dam is a stone engraved C.L.O.B. (centre line old bank), which marks where the original dam wall would have stood, and a flood memorial stone erected in 1991 by Bradfield Historical Society to commemorate those drowned. Thornseat House was built after the disaster to house the Chief Engineer of the Sheffield Water Company so that he could oversee the reconstruction of the dam.