Record of FULWOOD HISTORY GROUP MEETING 19th June 2025
Present: D.A., J.B., A.C., G.C., S.C., R.F., A.H., C.M., K.P., J.P.
We met on the top field at Forge Dam
- History & background of land relating to Forge Dam field and lower Brookhouse Hill
- Whitelely Lane, known as Chapel Lane, had been widened in the length fronting the chapel and graves were removed from this space – when was this?
- A quarry had occupied space we were seated on – late 19th and early 20th centuries – the entrance had been somewhere just below Brook House
- The Hancock family of builders had a plan for substantial area housing in this space; Hancock went bust in early 30s J.G. Graves Trust bought the land, so it was protected from development
- See Pitchforth From Village to Suburb photo ‘Looking up Brookhouse Hill about 1920’, p.125, ‘School Green Lane and Whiteley Lane’ p149, ‘Continuous Change’, p.157
- AC had discovered a Sale notice: MINATURE GOLF COURSE AND TENNIS COURTS at FULWOOD and WHITELEY, SHEFFIELD: which covered an area bordered by Whiteley Lane, Quiet Lane and Brookhouse Hill. It refers to ‘the WHITELEY WOOD MINATURE GOLF COURSE and 2 HARD TENNIS COURTS and small Hut’ and that it ‘forms an excellent site for a public institution, or the erection of Villa Residences’
- There had been tennis courts in the 1930s on the raised section of the field, but they could have belonged to the houses built there – not public
- Mini golf may have taken place on the lower area of field next to lower Brookhouse Hill (Lea Lane)
- Was the field used for allotments during WWII?
- There had been an orchard in the area where Muriel Hall’s bungalow was built; MH’s bungalow has been extensively redeveloped
1850s Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
1938/47 Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
- JB shared information from an enquiry sparked by a postcard from July 1908 sent by Florence Wilson nee Dixon of Stumperlowe Hall and then Tapton Hall; Florence addressed the card ‘Fulwood House’ – where her brother James was living at the time; it was sent to a what seems to have been a friend, (Ada Nicholson), who lived in Manchester; see KP’s post about Fulwood Hall on this website
- GC shared childhood memories of Tapton Hall, particularly its water feature, (fed by the Oak Brook) and the substantial trout it contained
- AC’s Substack piece on Brook House is available here: https://alancrutch.substack.com/p/brookhouse-brook-house
- AC then led us on an exploration of the cluster of buildings where Brookhouse Hill meets Whiteley Lane which include Brookhouse Farm, Brook House, Brook Lea, Brook Lodge and the former coffee house (Brook Cottage?). He told us about the people who lived in this area known as ‘Brook House’, (recorded in the late 1700s ‘Brook Hause’) or ‘Brook House Green’. ‘Brook House’ did not refer to one building, as it does now, but to a whole area or hamlet. Crimicar Lane was recorded as Brook House Green in the 1850s.
- KP’s post about 127 Brookhouse Hill explores the upper end of this road
- We walked up to the Ale Club, noting the ‘DANCE’ inscription
- See also: https://alancrutch.substack.com/p/dry-fulwood which includes history of the Fulwood shops area.
- Next meeting tbc