Upper Porter Valley in Sheffield - source related study.

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By

 Philip

 Jacobs

Introduction

On Tuesday 10th June 2003 and Wednesday 18th June 2003 I visited the upper Porter Valley in Sheffield. The purpose of these visits was to give me an understanding and provide evidence to aid me in answering the following questions.

  1. Would your visit to Shepherd Wheel give you enough evidence to support what is said in Sources A, B and C?
  2. Consider all the sites you have visited to help you answer the following question

b) i) How useful are the various sites in the Upper Porter Valley for learning about water powered sites and the cutlery industry before 1850?

b) ii) Is there sufficient evidence in the valley to provide a good understanding of Porter Valley’s water powered sites and cutlery making industry?

a) Would your visit to Shepherd Wheel give you enough evidence to support what is said in Sources A, B and C?

Source A - The heyday of the water mill in Sheffield was in the late 1700s when the streams were often so crowded that the tail goit of one mill fed the dam of the next.

The Forge and the Wheel – J G Timmins

Source A says that “the heyday of the water mill in Sheffield was in the late 1700s”. At Shepherd Wheel there is little evidence to support this claim. Though a small, modern plaque outside the workshop says that a Mr. Shepherd employed 10 men to work for him in 1794. This can be seen in figure 1.  These ten men reportedly worked for Mr. Shepherd in the larger, grinding workshop (hull).

Figure 1 - Plaque suggesting that there were 10 men employed in 1794 (bottom two lines) 

Source A also says, “streams were often so crowded that the tail goit of one mill fed the dam of the next”. I believe that my visit to Shepherd Wheel gave me evidence to agree with this statement. Although the tail goit of one dam doesn’t feed the head goit of the next dam directly, the gap is only a matter of metres and in the space of the three dams (Leather Wheel, Shepherd Wheel and Ibbotson Wheel) there is not room for any others. For example the tail goit of Leather Wheel Dam enters the River Porter but almost immediately is fed into a weir by a buttress. The water then is diverted by the weir into the head goit at Shepherd Wheel. Figure 2 below shows this.  

Figure 2 - Tail goit of Leather Wheel Dam into the head goit at Shepherd Wheel.

Figure 3 shows the whole of the Porter Valley, yet a visit to Shepherd Wheel wouldn’t be able to tell you this. The picture still only shows you the mills on the River Porter and not the whole of Sheffield.

Figure 3 – The mills in the Porter Valley

Source B – The inhalation of the dust of the stone and steel is so pernicious, that the life of a dry grinder scarcely averages above 35 years, while that of the wet grinder is seldom prolonged to more than 45 years. The bent posture and pressure on the stomach probably aggravate the evil.

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There are many accidents from stones breaking and catching the grinders. Often broken legs are a result and sometimes an early death.

Symonds 1842 

A guide at Shepherd Wheel told us that when the two hulls at Shepherd Wheel were fully operational large clouds of dust would form. We were also shown pieces of “swarf”. Swarf is a mixture of small pieces of metal, dust and water. Over time the mixture would solidify into a rock like substance.

We found no evidence of the average life expectancy of the grinders at Shepherd Wheel, but a newspaper ...

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