Burngreave before the Industrial Revolution

This map shows Burngreave as it was in 1832. Much of the housing existing at this time is around the area labeled "Pitsmoor".

Now part of Barnsley Road and Pitsmoor Road, this was the old turnpike road to Barnsley, Wakefield and Leeds. A Parliamentary Act of 1758 brought the turnpike road into being. A curious legacy of the turnpike road is the split-level "double" portion of Barnsley Road above Abbeyfield Park. The original turnpike Road is the higher of the two. Though the tollgates were removed in 1876, Pitsmoor Tollhouse, at the corner of Pitsmoor Road and Burngreave Road, is still there to this day.(click to enlarge)

Country Houses
Most of the rest of Burngreave seems to be occupied at this time by a number of country houses, complete with gardens and lakes. These include Shirecliffe Hall (originally in the position opposite the top of Shirecliffe Lane), Firs Hill (just to the north of where the school now is), Osgathorpe House (just north of Sturton road), Osgathorpe Cottage (now De la Salle Drive), The Hills (just to the south of Byron Wood School) and Burn Greave (Close to the Vestry Hall).

Lakes and Gardens
Given the extensive evidence for the involvement of South Yorkshire merchants in the slave trade, it is perhaps tempting to speculate where the owners of these country houses got the money for their fancy gardens and lakes.

The Anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano visited Sheffield in 1790. Equiano had been a slave himself until he bought his freedom and was a well-known representative of the 20,000 strong black community in London. His anti-slavery work had begun in the 1770’s when he became involved in campaigns to prevent owners from recapturing their freed or escaped slaves and servants.

Through his work, Equiano, along with other black political campaigners, became involved with both the middle class Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the radical London Corresponding Society, set up to spread the ideas of the French Revolution. As both of these societies had their sister organisations in Sheffield, it is likely that Equiano met men and women from both the Abolition Society and the SSCI during his visit in August 1790.

"One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would very soon have done the same if they had not been prevented by the ship’s crew, who were instantly alarmed … two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade."
– "The Life of Equiano Olaudah" by Equiano Olaudah

The slave trade was officially abolished in the British Empire in 1832, though in fact the practice continued in some parts long after this date.

by Ian Clifford, with grateful acknowledgement to the work of
Alison Twells and Trevor Lodge