Dore to Door internet edition

Local history - Autumn 2003

Letters - Dore Oral History - Jean recalls - The Making of Whinfell Quarry Gardens

Letters

Dear Sir,

I wonder if you can help me. I have started doing some family research and found that my great-great-grandfather, John Burford, was a police constable stationed at Totley and Dore from 1886 until 1890.

In the early hours of 17th January 1890, he disturbed an armed burglar attempting to break into a house. He was shot at twice by the burglar, but managed to escape serious injury.

The gentleman of the house was a Mr G. Slater, Wood Lea, Dore New Road, he was awakened and he and other residents came to the officers aid. When P.C Burford left the district, the inhabitants gave him a watch and a purse of gold as a mark of respect and in recognition of his faithful and able manner which he discharged his duties whilst stationed there, especially of the incident on 17th January 1890.

I would like to know if there are any local newspaper cuttings around regarding my great-great-grandfathers time in your area, or if there are any photographs of him which I could have copies of.

I can be contacted on 01335 344304 or email at - Dave@burfordd.freeserve.co.uk

David J.Burford

Dear Sir,

My great great grandfather Joseph Wilkinson, Watchmaker from Sheffield (Moor), retired to the Dore area where he died in December 1884. He lived at Ashfurlong Cottages with his 3rd wife. My great, great, great grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth Wilkinson also must have lived there in their latter years as they also died there. He was a Silversmith in Sheffield (Park). Joseph snr died 14 April 1874 and Elizabeth died 4 September 1873.

Do you have any information on where they lived. I don’t know what happened after they all died, and whether the cottage was sold. Any help would be most appreciated.

Where would be a good place to get Wills from?

Sue Woodcock

Ed. Can anyone help with information in response to this e-mail?

Dore Oral History

The exhibition ‘The Time of Our Lives’, which was compiled by the Dore Oral History Group, was a most successful festival event. It was greatly enjoyed by a large number of both Dore people and visitors alike, but particularly by the older residents who had contributed to the oral history project. Friends of all ages were reunited and memories and reminiscences exchanged. Everyone had a story to tell.

The members of the Dore Oral History Group were thrilled by the way in which the exhibition was received and talked about over the weekend. One resident expressed the view that it ‘stirred the heart of the village and brought out its strong sense of community.’

Comments in the visitors book included ‘a wonderful bit of nostalgia’, ‘a superb living history’, and ‘please have another exhibition again soon’.

Thank you to the hundreds of people who came and supported us. Also a big thank you to Steve Pounder whose expert services and advice were crucial to the success of ‘The Time of Our Lives’.

If you would like to join our friendly group or support our project in any other way phone Barbara Jackson on 236 0332

Maureen Cope

Jean recalls

Many families in Dore kept pigs during and after the war. There was a limitation on how many you were allowed to keep. There were usually 3 in a pig sty, 1 ½ each for the family in the big house and us. Though visits from the inspectors were carried out, the rules were bent a little. There being the official pig sty and the one placed out of sight.

Two brothers who lived near us broke the rules by having more than their official quota. When it came time for the porkers to be killed this had to be done on the sly. One occasion in particular the brothers had as they thought, stunned 1 pig and put it in a barrow. They went to get the other but when they returned the barrow was empty.

Bear in mind there was a blackout at that time. The pig had to be found, and soon. Fortunately for them the moon shone and the pink pig stood out and met its ultimate fate.

Dad used to boil the swill, mostly potatoes, but other kitchen refuse too, in the boiler which heated the glass houses. On a cold frosty day it smelt quite appetising. My aunt who lived in Abbeydale and wasn’t so fortunate as us where food was concerned, thought feeding potatoes to the pigs a scandal, but she never refused a bit from the dead animals.

My aunts kept pigs up Greens yard had one unfortunate accident when they put sawdust from the Green’s joinery shop on the sty floor and sadly the timber was poisonous and wiped the pigs out. After that they moved their pig keeping to Jack Greaves at Sycamore Farm on the top of Drury Lane.

Jean Dean

The Making of Whinfell Quarry Gardens

Whinfell Quarry Gardens, next to Whirlow Brook Hall, was the subject of the quarterly meeting of the Dore Village Society on Wednesday June 4th, when Stephen Doncaster talked to a packed hall about its early history and many of the people involved in its creation.

Stephen Doncaster is a grandson of Samuel Doncaster, local steel magnate, who had Whinfell house and gardens built at Whirlow at the turn of the last century. There is no written history of these events and much that Stephen said came from the memories of members of his family. Stephen talked about his family, the creation of the gardens and some of the well known people who were involved in the project at Whinfell. The Gardens contain plants collected over a hundred years ago from all over the world - giant redwoods from California, tiny alpine plants and specimens from Japan.

Stephen told us that his grandfather was universally known as Mr Sam. He remembers him as a generous, amiable character with a great sense of humour, much loved by many people. He was a water colourist, naturalist and traveller, a man with wide interests. He had climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas where he probably developed his interest for alpine gardening. His diaries also record that in California he acquired so many seeds and fir cones that he had to buy himself an extra suitcase. He was also a Quaker and there were many other Quakers involved in the creation of the Gardens.

Mr Sam first leased the quarry in 1887 and Whinfell House was built around 1900. The architect was his nephew, a young man, Norman Doncaster, greatly influenced by Edward Lutyens. The house was built in a style very fashionable in the south of England known as Kentish Weald. Stephen said his father hated it because it was so out of keeping with local vernacular styles.

Lutyens worked very closely with an artist, Gertrude Jekyll who in turn had been influenced by William Robinson an extremely influential Irish garden designer and writer. Stephen told an apocryphal tale that, whilst looking after the hothouses of an Irish bishop on the coldest night of the year, Robinson suddenly at 2am in the morning, turned off all the heat and left Ireland. He also showed us a copy of Robinson’s seminal work "The English Flower Garden". Robinson liked natural gardens. Jekyll developed the ideas that the nearer the house the more formal it was possible to be, but the further away you go the more natural and wilder it should be.

The gardens were actually laid out by James Backhouse of York, three generations of nurserymen being well known at the end of the 19th century. The rock garden next door at Whirlow Brook was also designed by Backhouse. Another famous gardener was Clarence Elliot who worked for Backhouses in about 1902 but went on to become a partner in a famous London photographic firm ‘Elliot & Fry’.

Mr Sam was very proud of the garden he had created and wanted it recorded. Accordingly he commissioned at least 12 watercolours from a local artist, Frank Saltfleet, a protégé of John Ruskin. They have now been split up but Stephen owns three, which he kindly brought along to show us and he thinks he knows where at least six others are. One painting shown was of the magnificent herbaceous border and another the ‘Aubretia Waterfall’ blue and purple aubretia planted very thickly around the rocks at the top of little quarry, which bloomed spectacularly in early summer.

Stephen Doncaster’s talk, with his boyhood memories from the early part of the century, not only brought some life back to the Gardens but sowed the seeds for some ways forward. He concluded that he was sure that if Mr Sam were to come back now he would be absolutely thrilled to see the way some of his collection had developed.

The Gardens passed from the Doncasters to another steel family, the Neills, in the early 30s. They, in turn, gifted it to the city of Sheffield in 1968. Like many of the parks and gardens in Sheffield it suffered from low maintenance for a number of years but at the end of the 90s the Friends of Whinfell Quarry Gardens was formed to tidy up and restore the Gardens to some of their former glory.

We have been fortunate in getting the entire talk transcribed, for which we owe a debt of gratitude to Malcolm Jones, the new secretary of FWQG, now resident at Whinfell, where the splendid herbaceous border used to be, and his granddaughter, Jennifer Allen. It will be kept by the Friends of Whinfell Quarry Gardens. The Friends are also hoping to photograph as many of the Saltfleets as can be found for the archives.

Volunteers are needed to look after this genre Garden; some to sweep and clear and others to attract publicity and grants. The next working day is October 25th where everyone is welcome to make their small contributions to keeping this magical place alive. Dore Village Society gave a grant which enabled the new planting on the left of the entrance last year.

Kathleen Cox Treasurer FWQG

Ed. Local contacts for the Friends are: Prof Shaun Quegan (Chair) phone 236 2196; Malcolm Jones (Secretary) 43 Whinfell Court phone 236 1113