A History of Graves Park
Geology and physical features
Graves Park contains sedimentary rocks including mudstones, ironstones, shales, siltstones and sandstones. All these sediments are referred to as “Coal Measures” and are dated to the upper Carboniferous period.
The main drainage is a small stream from east of Bunting Nook, culverted under the road, through the east wall of the upper dam, then through the ponds and into the steep-sided wooded valley, through the outcrops of Grenoside Sandstone and Greenmoor Rock then disappearing unto a culvert under Chesterfield Road.
At 248 acres, including the Animal Farm, Graves Park is the largest park in Sheffield, embracing an impressive variety of contrasting features. Vast expanses of open parkland with short grass are bordered and intersected by natural and semi-natural woodlands. Graves Park is also a multi-sports and recreation site with facilities for tennis, bowls, miniature golf, cycling, and orienteering. In Estate papers of 1887, it was described as 200 acres of ‘rich arable pasture park and woodland” with timber, and abounding with oak and other trees, as well ‘as sheets of water and extensive pleasure grounds’.
Graves Park was bought for the people of Sheffield by J G Graves, from 1925 to 1936. At this time, it was named after Sheffield’s benefactor. Before this, it was known as Norton Park and was the parkland for Norton Hall. Norton is recorded in the Domesday Book in 1087 and the estate is first recorded in 1002, with the earliest known reference to its ownership contained in the Last Will and Testament of Wulfic Spott in the year 1002.
Domesday Book
The reference in the Domesday Book shows that Godiva and Bada held the land at Norton during the reign of Edward the Confessor. Roger de Busli held the land thereafter, followed by someone called Ingelram. His son, Ranulph de Alfreton, and grandson, Robert FitzRanulph, followed the latter. A change of dynasty came in 1269, during the reign of Henry III, when the line of Ingelram failed to produce a son. The female heir, Alicia de Alfreton, married Sir William Chaworth who became the new ruler at Norton.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7310175
When the line of Chaworths ended in a daughter, Joan, the name disappeared when she married John Ormond. One of their daughters, Joan, married Thomas Denham, the other, Elizabeth, married Sir Anthony Babington. The result was that the estate was split between the Denhams and the Babingtons.
The Denhams’ share passed by sale, successively, to the Bullocks, the Eyres, and the Blythes. In 1587 the other portion of the estate was also acquired by the Blythes, who sold the estate in its entirety again to a landowner, John Bullock.
When the Bullocks fell into difficulties they mortgaged Norton to Cornelius Clarke, who had no children and so passed Norton onto his sister Ursula, who married Stephen Offley. The Norton Estate remained with several generations of Offleys, until the heir, Urith, married Samuel Shore. It was Samuel Shore who rebuilt Norton Hall and is credited as being responsible for greatly extending and opening out the grounds around the house, forming the estate into a landscape of beautiful parkland.
The Norton Estate remained with the Shores until 1843, when the then Lord of the Manor, Offley Shore, was forced to dispose of the Estate, owing to the failure of his bank. The next resident at Norton Hall was James Yates who came, not as Lord of the Manor, but as a tenant. The sale by auction of the Shore Estate in 1850, received no bid, but was eventually secured by Charles Cammell.
The Cammells were followed by John Sudbury who sold the Estate to W.F. Goodliffe and in turn it was sold to Bernard Alexander Firth in 1902.
J.G. Graves’s Gift
1925 saw the most significant change in the ownership of the land. 112 acres (including Norton Hall) were purchased on behalf of the Sheffield Voluntary Hospitals, from Bernard Firth, who at the same time presented some 7 1/2 acres of land as a gift to the hospitals. In the same year 154 acres of the Estate were purchased by Councillor and Mrs. J.G. Graves, and presented to the Corporation as a gift to the City of Sheffield, for use as a public park. At three times the size of Norfolk Park, this new public ground, which the Corporation named ‘Graves Park’ was the largest in Sheffield. Its location on the peripheries of Sheffield, yet within the city boundaries and bordered by the hospital site, was considered to be ideal. It would fulfil the dual purpose of providing the people of Sheffield with a fine sports and recreational space, while simultaneously protecting the land surrounding the hospital from pollution or development. The boundary of the new park ran along Hemsworth and Cobnar Roads then down Meadowhead as far as the lodge leading up to the hospital site, to which the park joined beyond Norton Church.
The Graves Park gift included Bolehill Farm and the farm buildings, including Cobnar Cottage, situated near the Cobnar Road boundary, at the northern section of the park. These features are ‘Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest’ and considered important elements within a valuable group of traditional stone buildings.
Bolehill Farmhouse was partially damaged by fire in 1978, and was sold in 1982 to Agrocare Ltd. for residential use, at a cost of £17,100 and an annual ground rent of £25.
Cobnar Wood
The Graves gift also embraced three woods named Cobnar, Waterfall, and Summerhouse. Complementing the vastness of the recreation areas the woods provide shaded enclosures with man-made paths leading to different portions of the park. There is a nature trail at the southern end of Graves Park for the visitor to identify particular trees, shrubs, and wildlife. Summerhouse Wood was named after the Summerhouse, or Tower House, that was demolished by the council in the 1960s. Standing on the south side of the wood in 1925, it was possibly a hunting lodge. Beech and Sycamore are found at the entrance to Cobnar Wood, and further in are a group of ash saplings, and coniferous trees.
Panoramic Views
Just east of the site of the Summerhouse is the pavilion in Graves Park, built in 1927, now named the Rose Garden Café. Below the Summer House, by the path leading to Bolehill Lodge, is the site of the Coach House, once used by residents of the Summer House. There used to be a pond in front of the Coach House, but now there is only a slight depression in the ground.
The southern portion of the park was separated from the hospital grounds by three lakes, stocked with fish and substantial enough for boating. The larger of the three already had a boat-house in 1925, but this was demolished in the 1930s. Today the surface of the boating lake is almost entirely covered with leafy plants, although there are frequently a number of keen fishermen/women at the other two ponds.
Theatre
In 1927 Graves Park had only two entrances, at Meadowhead on the southwest, and at Hemsworth Road, at the top of Derbyshire Lane on the north. In 1927, a scheme was approved to convert a quarry in Cobnar Wood, originally the site of the old Norton Rifle Range, into an open-air theatre. Around the natural cavity, at one end of which there was a wall of stone, the ground rose steeply and was covered with trees and bushes. The undergrowth was cleared away and the ground levelled. A platform was erected under the quarry wall with seating arranged to face this stage. During the summer months the Parks Committee arranged a variety of theatrical events, including orchestral and chamber music, bands, and plays. There were also plans to build permanent dressing rooms in the vicinity and a platform-roof for rainy evenings, but it is unclear if these schemes materialized, as contemporary photographs of the theatre show no evidence of them. The location of the open-air theatre is now overgrown.
During the early years of the Corporation’s ownership, walks were constructed, the lakes cleaned out, and a great deal of planting and general laying-out took place. By 1929 six cricket pitches had been laid out.
In the same year a new approach road to the park from Little Norton Lane, to the top of Charles Ashmore Road, was completed. In the following year, football and hockey pitches were laid out, as well as yet more cricket pitches. Also in 1930, a new entrance was constructed in Charles Ashmore Road, with wrought-iron gates and stone pillars. In 1931, J.G. Graves purchased another 8 acres of the estate and presented it to the city. This land, near to the junction between Chesterfield Road and Cobnar Road, had been retained by Bernard Firth at the original sale in 1925. By securing this portion of the estate, the Corporation was later able to provide an additional entrance, allowing access from Chesterfield Road.
Children’s Playground
A children’s playground was also erected on this site and seems to be very popular with the local community today. Its position allows infants and parents to easily access the playground without the necessity to trek miles through the park. Two years later, another entrance at Cobnar Road was built and shrubs and flowerbeds planted beside it. In the same year, two weirs were constructed with rustic bridges, and three of the nine turf tennis courts were converted into hard courts. By the following year three more had been converted. Also in 1934, an Old Men’s Shelter was built near the Cobnar Road entrance, and a drinking fountain installed, although its exact location is unclear.
Graves Park was extended by between 43 and 44 acres in 1935, another gift from J.G. Graves, who purchased the land from the trustees of the four Voluntary Sheffield Hospitals, for £13,000. (The hospital trust sold an additional 48 acres to developers, retaining 28 acres (including Norton Hall) for its own purposes.) This extension, therefore, reached from the southern limit of Graves Park (pre 1935) to the Serpentine Walk and included Norton Hall’s old walled garden and Chantrey Cottage (sold in 1995).
The Rose Garden
An original feature from the thirties that survives today, is the formal rose garden. Located in front of the refreshment pavilion, this is a sunken garden with steps leading down to it. It was designed and laid out in 1938 by E.O. Sadler (who had been responsible for Beauchief Garden, two years before). The garden is arranged in a geometrical pattern, with rectangular paving separating sections of roses of the hardiest variety. Originally 1000 rose trees were planted, along with hedges and violas of contrasting colours. The paving was taken from slum clearance houses, and the low bordering wall and steps were made from rock from local moors. Wooden seating is arranged around the outer path of the garden, and there is a stone pergola with timber beams at one end and a sundial at the other. Both the pergola and the sundial remain today, although there is an instrument missing from the top of the sundial. The stone base is still standing, with part of a decorative bronze surface inscribed, ‘When time is not, only shall I pass away’. In the centre of the rose garden there used to be a statue of Peter Pan, but this has been removed entirely.
Walking down towards the woodland, with the rose garden on the left, is the approach to the best part of ancient semi-natural woodland. On the right is ancient woodland, evidenced by the plants on the woodland floor, including wood anemone and bluebells. This woodland was named “The Wood” in 1740 (by 1805 it was Park Wood); it has evidence of charcoal hearths, long abandoned, in use before 1700. Bole Hill hamlet in the distance is so named because of lead smelting, which ceased after the civil war.
Cobnar Wood, the wood that continues down to the bottom of Cobnar Road at Chesterfield Road, has evidence of coppicing for lead/iron smelting. At the bottom of The Wood was the mediaeval deer park (in 1805 called the Old Park. Between the old deer park and The Wood was and is Spring Park, meaning a coppice wood. The newer wood in the park is 200-300 years old.
Plants suggesting ancient woodland are bluebells, dog’s mercury and wood anemone . There is also a selection of old trees to see. The beech trees along this path are about 200 years old and at end of life. Further along is an oak around 400 years old, destined to live much longer. At the ravine the ancient woodland continues across to Derbyshire Lane, the old London Road.
The lakes are linked to Norton Hall. They could be linked to the previous original hall, possibly used for fish for food. Certainly in the 19th century they were used for recreation, boating for the inhabitants of the grand house. There used to be a thatch-roofed boathouse on the larger, lower lake and there are photographs of the ladies entertaining themselves by being rowed around the lake.
All the open parkland is covered with evidence of ridge and furrow, the old method of farming land. In places the turning circles for ploughs pulled by oxen can be seen. Field boundaries, or lynchets, are also clearly evident.
At the top of hill to the south of the park, another major feature, more earthworks, can be seen, yet more evidence of this site being inhabited thousands of years ago. From here, looking down towards Charles Ashmore Road entrance, is the area labelled the Harehills in 1805, set aside for coursing and for the pot. There would have been a series of little enclosures, each with its own purpose. Looking back towards Derbyshire Lane, a big bank can be seen, another earthwork. South of the Harehills, towards Norton Park View, is an area called the Clay Lands.
Chantreyland Meadow is the first area to be restored to parkland by the Friends of Graves Park. In 1805 it was labelled as “Plantation”, which is woodland. This is part of the land was bought by J. G. Graves in 1935, to be gifted to the people of Sheffield forever. This woodland, described as mature woodland consisting mainly of oak, sycamore and chestnut, was cut down and cleared in the mid to late 1950s, to extend Norton Nurseries for greenhouses to grow plants for the city. The old pet cemetery is now underneath the site of these greenhouses.
In 1998, the council declared the site “surplus to requirements” and proposed selling off the land for a housing estate. Local campaigning proved that the land was charitable land and part of Graves Park, after which the Friends of Graves Park was formed and plans to restore the site began.
The first phase of restoration is Chantreyland Meadow, now a nationally recognised and protected wildlife area. Detailed records of all flora and fauna on the site are kept each year. Some of the plants re-emerging are signs of the woodland that used to be here.
Planned from 2008 and started in 2010, phase two is the Arboretum. This area is fulfilling part of the dream of the Friends of Graves Park, which is to restore the “derelict” Nurseries site by planting trees. Species included in the arboretum are oak, walnut and the ancient ginkgo biloba.
