Our history

Roscoe Allotments have been dug, planted and harvested for more than a century. They belong to the longer history of the Rivelin Valley — a much-loved place of leisure for generations of Sheffielders, and one of the cradles of the city’s steel and cutlery industries.

Our green valley

From the earliest mediaeval records, the valley of the ‘Riveling Water’ was a thickly wooded hunting park, teeming with deer, wild boar, fox, badger and grouse, and with salmon, trout and coarse fish in the river. All of it was reserved for Sheffield’s Lords of the Manor — and for hungry poachers, who risked dire punishments. The valley was famous for its ancient, gigantic oaks.

Large areas of common land gave the poorer inhabitants somewhere to graze their animals, gather berries and firewood, and hold the occasional celebration, such as horse races.

Cradle of industry

From the sixteenth century the Rivelin — along with the Loxley, Porter, Sheaf and Don — was transformed in the earliest phase of Sheffield’s metalworking industry. Fast rivers were ideal for water power. By the eighteenth century there were 21 watermills nose to tail from Uppermost Mill down to Malin Bridge: hammering, grinding, polishing and rolling forks, knives, saws and razors, alongside flour milling, paper making, glass lenses, and the casting and forging of anvils.

The old forests were fed to the furnaces. Pictures from the late nineteenth century show very few trees left in the valley — presumably why the Roscoe Plantation was planted.

The Roscoe Dam (1725) lay on the left bank of the river, across from the allotments. It was filled from a beautiful double-arched weir, apparently designed to hold back silt. Roscoe Mill was a grinding shop, mainly producing saw blades and fireplace fenders. Next to it stood a row of stone cottages, now demolished, and a stone well inscribed BEER-LAHAI-ROI — Hebrew, from the Book of Genesis, meaning ‘The Well of the Living One who sees me’. Nothing more is known about its origin. The Roscoe Bridge still stands.

500 years of growing

Mill work depended on water, so in dry summers the men worked short days but had to stay on hand. It was natural to keep small growing plots alongside the mills, and people have probably been gardening in Rivelin for at least 500 years.

Most of the water-powered mills, Roscoe among them, closed between 1900 and 1935. Many had been bought by the Sheffield Water Company in the 1840s, because the new Rivelin Dams — built for the city’s water supply — threatened their water. The Company, and with it the Corporation, thus became the valley’s major landowner, and from that ownership the current allotments and the park directly resulted.

Sheffield was one of the first towns in Britain to offer garden plots to its working people. By 1780 there were an estimated 3,000 plots for a population of around 20,000, mostly on Duke of Norfolk Estate land, and usually temporary. In the mid nineteenth century Walkley was shaped by Freehold Land Societies — collectives of working men buying allotment land, initially to qualify for the vote under the 1832 Great Reform Act, as well as to grow food and build houses.

As those plots were built over and the population grew, pressure mounted for permanent sites, backed by three Acts of Parliament promoting allotments. The Corporation turned to its Rivelin land: the Roscoe project was initiated in 1902, becoming Sheffield’s first ‘statutory’ allotment site — meaning its use as allotments cannot be changed without the Secretary of State’s permission. The plots also assisted unemployed men affected by a recession in the steel trade.

The ‘New Road’

The valley had no continuous route along it until the Corporation built one. During 1905–06, scores of unemployed men built the three-and-a-half mile ‘New Road’ — now Rivelin Valley Road — from Malin Bridge to Rivelin Post Office, and planted 700 lime trees, which now form a magnificent avenue.

The former New Dam became a very cold swimming pool (men and boys only!), which closed after its changing hut burnt down.

Rivelin revived

During the First World War more allotments extended the Roscoe site westward, with further plots on Hagg Lane and Hagg Hill. Initial rents were 12/6d a year — about 65p in today’s money, though worth a great deal more then.

The early tenants specialised in flowers, with chrysanthemums a particular speciality, and local pubs ran summer competitions with prizes for flowers and vegetables. The gardens drew Sunday walkers, who admired the plots and bought the produce. The hedges were a lot lower then!

In the Second World War the plots were at their maximum extent, with every square yard cultivated. In the 1950s, Rivelin Valley Park was created on the site of Spooner Wheel and Dam, with the café and lido.

After a period of decline in the 1980s and 90s — vacant plots, vandalism — demand is now returning strongly, encouraged by interest in growing food locally, a thriving allotment association, and smaller ‘starter plots’ for those taking on their first patch.

Further reading

• Reminiscing in Rivelin — Roy Davey
• History of Sheffield Allotments — Margaret Boulton
• A History of Sheffield — David Hey
• Walking in the Rivelin — Rivelin Valley Conservation Volunteers

We’d love you to be part of the story.