I think my aunt Mrs Hilda Warnes must be one of the oldest remaining ex- pupils of the school and I am sure that she must be the oldest resident born and bred in Dore. Hilda was born on the 20th December 1910, the youngest child of Harry and Mary Taylor. Her eldest brother was already in his 20's when Hilda made her appearance, weighing in at 12 lbs. She was born in Rose Cottage on High Street.

Hilda left school at 14 and worked as a nurse maid for the England family at Rose Garth, on Ashfurlong. Hilda and her sisters were renowned for their beauty and complexions. They all had jet black hair and blue eyes. She had many admirers, but in her early teens, married Harry Warnes from Abbeydale. Harry at that time was a typesetter on the Sheffield Independent. For a short time Hilda lived in Abbeydale but always said that had she not moved back to Dore she would have pined away. So apart from a few months away Hilda has spent all her life in Dore. For many years with her sister Ada, she served the school dinners. Ada and she kept pigs, firstly in Greens Yard and then at Sycamore Farm. The pigs were fed mostly on school scraps.

Jean Dean

Brian Chatterton of Vernon Road has written to "Dore to Door' magazine with a query that crops up almost incessantly. His title deeds tell him that he lives in Dore, yet his postal address is Totley Rise. Therefore does he live in Dore or Totley?

Historically there is no doubt at all that the actual boundary, between the two, follows the middle of the course of the Old Hay Brook. This watercourse runs approximately parallel with Totley Brook Road, passes under Baslow Road near the Methodist Chapel, before meeting the Totley Brook that is the boundary river between Totley and Holmesfield (or Bradway for a short length). Incidentally the two brooks meet here and together form the beginning of the River Sheaf. It seems to me that there are three reasons for the confusion:

1. Totley Rise was a name that appeared sometime in the second half of the 1800s and originally referred to the rising ground from the Old Hay Brook and past what is now the crescent of shops on Baslow Road. After that time the area name seems to have spread to include Totley Brook Road, Vemon Road, Chatsworth Road, Busheywood Road, Abbeydale Road, West View etc., all of which are Dore. Even Grove Road and the Methodist Chapel are in Dore! Milldale Road, almost opposite the Chapel is, however, in Totley.

2. In the 1870s, developers of private villa estates were taking advantage of the new attraction afforded by the opening of Dore & Totley Station, providing access to Sheffield and London, and the possibility of a link with Manchester via the Hope Valley. The original Totley Brook Estate Company' laid out plots of land on either side of the tree lined private drive leading from the still standing lodge on Baslow Road, up what is now called Grove Road and to the Victorian residence known as Totley Grove (alias Totley Dale and Totley Vale), which, these days, can be approached from Hillfoot Road near the Crown Inn, or via Totley Brook Road. Unfortunately the Estate Company adopted Totley Brook' as it's title, either in ignorance of the actual names of the brooks - technically speaking it should have been the Old Hay Brook Estate' - or more likely because the inclusion of Totley' had marketing attractions. This aberration was then compounded when Sheffield City Council built the new Totley Brook Estate' that stretches almost into the heart of Dore. Whoever named this new council development did not do their homework, because it is perhaps up to a mile away from the Totley Brook itself. So you can understand why there is some confusion!

3. The third problem is that the railway company bought up many of the proposed (original)estate company plots and severed the link between the beginning and the end of the estate road, otherwise you would have been able to drive straight along Grove Road and continue up what I now refer to as the middle section of Totley Brook Road. In forming the railway, the Old Hay Brook was diverted over the cutting via the attractive brick aqueduct and thereafter the line of the river was straightened out for a distance then resuming its original course before it reached Baslow Road.

So for me to say that the boundary follows the centre line of the course of the Old Hay Brook is not strictly true these days but let us say that it does, apart from the hundred yards or so of river where the straightening took place. In other words there is no doubt at all that you are firmly entrenched in Dore, Brian. Whether you could get the Post Office to change the postal address is highly doubtful, even if you wanted to effect the border crossing!

Some other time we can deal with the contentious boundaries between Dore and Bradway andalso between Totley and Bradway. In the latter case I have a long running and, I hope, good-natured debate with some Queen Victoria (originally Victoria) Road residents, who prefer to be know as Totley Risers.

Brian Edwards

I remember that when we moved into the newly-built houses on West View Close, the cottage was quite delightful, surrounded by fields on the Bradway side and gardens that sloped down to the River Sheaf. I think that at that time, in the late 1960s, it was owned by a Tony Wright, who sought planning permission to develop the surrounding land. There was a problem over access to the site as the railway bridge was deemed to be too narrow. Later, a small strip of land was purchased from the owner of no.1 West View Close (we were at no.9) so that the bridge could then be widened. The site was developed with the West View Housing as we see it today. Running through the cottage garden was the disused goit (or water channel) which, in times gone by, lead from the Totley Brook (just above its confluence with the Old Hay Brook) to feed the Bradway Dam just fifty yards or so downstream. In the process, the water would power the Upper Wheel that stood either close by or on the site of Westview Cottage; another channel went directly into the river below the dam. It would appear that Upper Wheel had no conventional dam although the river looks as though it was widened above the weir (which can still be seen today). I was told that the cottage had been part of the mill.

Years ago I remember being able to trace the old goit as a dried-up ditch from the Totley Brook to the approximate position of the Bradway Dam, interrupted only by the supports of the railway bridge. There seems to be little known about the Upper Wheel and it may have been out of use by the mid 19th century. A building is shown on the survey, of the early 1800s, for the new turnpike that was to become Abbeydale Road South.

There has been some confusion as to whether documents in the past referred to Bradway Mill or Upper Wheel. However both were being used as grinding wheels in 1805 by Thomas Slack who rented the facilities from Edward Simpson. Previous to this date, Bradway Mill was apparently used as a corn mill. The map shows the area in the 1880s and the Dam was then being used as a fish pond for the then newly-built Brinkburn Grange. There was a boat (or possibly more) on this lake and in about 1970 I found part of one in the river just near Brinkburn Drive. Westview Cottage was unoccupied for the last few years of its life and was eventually demolished around 1975 or 1976 by my estimate.

Brian Edwards

The Hare and Hounds Cigarette Fund' was formed to send cigarettes to local men who were serving in the armed forces during the Second World War. Meetings were held regularly in the Hare and Hounds and Mr Clark, the landlord, and Mrs Clark were very active in their support. There were various ways of raising money:

• local people made regular weekly donations
• collection boxes in the bars
• regular fruit and vegetable shows
• a dance in the Church Hall
• donations and gifts.

A list known as the 60 list' was of approximately 60 local people who each made a regular weekly payment of 1/-. We have the records of these payments from 1942 to 1945. Some of the surnames on the list are the same as those on the list of recipients. There were collection boxes in the bars in the pub, and later it was decided that each Saturday night a delegated committee member should take round a drum for further donations. Fruit and vegetable shows were regularly held. A meeting on 25th October, 1940 voted that "we have a mixed variety for a show on Sunday 5th November next, consisting of one cabbage, one cauliflower, one savoy, six potatoes, three beetroots; prizes to be:- first - 5/-, second - 3/-, third - 1/-." A later show was for six sticks of rhubarb, with 2/6 first prize. Other shows were for violas, roses, lettuce, new potatoes, tomatoes and red cabbages. Entrance to each show was 3d. In May 1942 local relatives of men on the recipient's list were invited to attend a meeting to stimulate interest in the shows, as those held the previous summer had been very badly supported. As an experiment, the next few shows were to be held with no entrance fee. However at a meeting on 5th June 1942, the minutes state that "the committee shall place on record their intense regret at the non-attendance and lack of interest shown by the local relatives of those onthe personal list".

In July it was decided to award the person with most points in a show a bottle of whisky, with a half-bottle going to the person with the second highest number of points. At one show Miss B. Green won a set of carvers for most points in show. A dance organised by Mrs Clark was held at the Church Hall in September 1944 in aid of the Cigarette Fund and the Red Cross. The balance sheet shows œ100 profits shared equally between these two charities. The orchestra was paid œ5-15-0d and a commissionaire -10/-. Several people gave gifts or donations to the fund. A Mr Russell offered six lamps to be auctioned at the dance and the club was presented with 400 razor blades to be sold at 1/6 for ten. The chairman gave a small tin of petrol for use in cigarette lighters. A generous gift of knitting needles' to be sold at 5/- per box came from Mr Harold Moore. Yet another gift was the carver set previously mentioned. Another fund-raiser was to pay 6d to guess the amount in a jar of pennies. First prize was a half a bottle of whisky, second and third prizes a box of razor blades! Minutes also show the purchase of calendars and painted postcards. These were, presumably, sold locally to raise funds. While all this fund-raising was taking place, committee members were also busy regularly distributing cigarettes, or when these were in short supply, gifts of 10/- or œ1, and keeping an up-to-date list of local men serving in the forces. They also tried to ensure that any men who became prisoners of war would receive their gifts, and worked with the Red Cross to this end. In minutes of a meeting held in March 1941 the question of the inclusion of ladies was "left over until such times as it becomes more imperative". Did this refer to recipients of the fund or women who helped to run it, but were not on the committee? Mrs Clark and Miss J Clark worked hard raising money and in August 1941 there was minuted "a hearty vote of thanks to Miss J Clark for her efforts on behalf of the fund". Mrs Clark had joined one committee meeting involved with organising the dance, together with Miss Richards and Mr Atkinson and was minuted as present at a meeting on 9th June 1944 in place of her husband.

A leaflet dated 1943 tells us that the "60 list" is one of the most successful in the county and that it won the Daily Mirror prize for originality in the early days of the war. It had by then sent out 255,000 cigarettes and £410 cash. By the end of the war the fund had distributed £696-18s-0d and the number of cigarettes remained at 255,000. A notice was exhibited showing these figures and stating that after all outstanding dues had been paid, the balance was to be shared between the men on the list. A meeting held in December 1946 shows a balance of £222-19s-10d which was to be shared out, but by February 1948, with £149-10s-4d still not claimed, it was decided to pay this to an ex-service charity. Eventually, eight years later, in 1956 the final balance of £51-5s-10d was given to Fairthorn Convalescent Home.

All the archive material relating to the cigarette fund is now held by the Dore Village Society and can be seen after September when the Old School reopens.

Stella Wood

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