Family and Local History Day, Bradfield Village Hall, Low Bradfield, Sheffield

In this article I mentioned an upcoming event, a Family and Local History Day to be held at Bradfield Village Hall, Low Bradfield near Sheffield. Well I made the time to attend and was not disappointed. I was surprised just how many people turned out, though the fine and sunny weather may have contributed.

Many local history groups and societies were represented including the Hillsborough & Owlerton Local History Group. This stand had numerous photographs of Owlerton Green and Hillsborough. I was born at Hawksley Road on the edge of Owlerton Green and though I moved to Stannington in the mid 1950's, my maternal grandparents continued to live there until the early 1980's. I have witnessed the many changes that have taken place over the years and so seeing these photographs brought back a lot of memories.

While discussing with one of the ladies from this stand some of the photographs of Owlerton Green, she happened to mentioned she lived on one of the nearby streets. I in turn mentioned I was born at Hawksley Road whereupon she remarked that her colleague lived on a street whose houses backed on to where I was born. As soon as she mentioned her colleagues name I immediately realised this was a member of a family whom I had not seen for probably 30 or 40 years.

Needless to say I had a long chat with this lady and since she has lived on this same street all her life she is a mind of information regarding local families and people I had not seen since my childhood. For reasons of privacy I will withhold names, but it is sufficient to say meeting this lady made the day very worthwhile indeed.

I ordered some copies of the photographs of Owlerton Green which a couple of weeks later duly arrived. I am not sure who may own the copyright of these photographs but I may try and obtain permission to publish them on this website.

I chatted with the people from the Friends of Wardsend Cemetery stand and purchased the CD:

Wardsend Cemetery, Monumental Inscriptions

The Friends of Bradfield Archives were very welcoming and I spent some considerable time working my way through the Bradfield Parish Register indices, searching for ASHFORTH and RIDAL. They also had a plan of the graveyard at the Church of Saint Nicholas at nearby High Bradfield. Several years ago I located this headstone:

John Ashforth died 1768 and William Ashforth died 1825 - Headstone

though according to the plans there are several others to be found. I made a rough sketch of their locations and will search for these others at a later date.

From the Sheffield & District Family History Society I purchased the following CDs:

Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Sheffield Cathedral, Baptism Records 1813-1875
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Sheffield Cathedral, Baptism Index 1752-1812
Sheffield Marriage Indexes

Time passed very quickly and after some 4 hours we finally departed, but not before taking a few photographs of Low Bradfield. All in all a very worthwhile day and one I can thoroughly recommend.

I now need to make some time in order to sort through all this research material.