Norfolk Park and Arbourthorne

Hiya, new person here. New, and with an agenda.

I have been working in the Norfolk Park and Arbourthorne area for some years now, mostly as a community worker for the Sheffield Wildlife Trust. This year we have decided to look at things from a slightly different perspective...my new project is called 'Sense of Place' and is loosely based on Common Ground's principles (www.commonground.org.uk if you've never heard of it - great ideas). The idea is (very) basically, to take the history of the area, it's cultures, it's nature, it's current residents, past residents, new residents, and come up with some landscape improvements/ artwork/ multimedia that help residents both old and new to get a better grasp of their ...well, their sense of the place in which they live.

Oh dear, that wasn't too clear...

Maybe I should start with 'has anyone got any local history knowledge for my two areas?' I'm not picky, ten years ago, ten thousand years ago.

TIA for any info.

Hi

When I was a kid there was a place at the top of Myrtle Rd called the Piggeries, never really sure waht this was but I had this vision of a load of pigs living there, maybe of interest?

hmm...cool. Was it a building or an open space? Do you recall?

Open space, near the Ball Inn Pub. This was in the 60/70's

Nearest road? I'm trying ti pinpoint exactly where you mean.

The entrance was off Mrytle rd

This link shows an arial view of where it was( The green bit of land)

link here

This shows the map view

link here

tidied up long links - gb

Thanks.

We've had our attention drawn to this site a fair amount recently. Seems it may be sold to developers.

I heard tell it was bought by schools (literally each school handing over real money) in this area yonks ago, but that the schools bit of the council ain't interested in trying to keep it up. Lower Arbourthorne& Hallyburton Forum were trying to figure out if legally it still belonged to the schools themselves rather than the council, in which case it would be up to the schools to decide what should happen to it. All hearsay, of course.

I've never heard it called the piggeries, but 'im indoors is an elderly person's support worker for the area, so I think I'll do some digging.

Maybe it was just a rude term for the schoolkids who used to use it

There's no school round there, this used to be a farm and a football pitch, it used to be Sheffield United's training ground, hence the name of the pub, the Ball Inn nearby

Yep, that's the place. I'd forgotten the football link.

It wasn't one school, but several in the adjoining area who supposedly clubbed together to purchase the land.

The farm could be interesting for further research...

Since you were so close, did you use Black Bank at all? The area next to the Earl Marshall...that's one of our four main sites.

Also the lower part of Arbourthorne Rec., St Aidans Rec and the Jervis Lum corridor.

it did used to be called the piggeries, my mom was born at the top of myrtle road in the 1940's (sorry mum!!) and it used to be a farm with you've guessed it - pigs!! it was as someone else said - sheffield uniteds training ground and has just been derelict land since then- i have a few photographs of my mom as a child in her front garden with the ball inn pub behind her and it looks exactly the same now as it did then.

Originally posted by mikey

Hi

When I was a kid there was a place at the top of Myrtle Rd called the Piggeries, never really sure waht this was but I had this vision of a load of pigs living there, maybe of interest?

I know myrtle springs had a piggery there owned by the woodheads in the 60's and also the castle shaped building which is sadly now long gone, also at the top of arbourthorne rd there used to be the hurlfield girls school which was demolished due to subsidence.....now about 100 houses are built on the site also all the houses on myrtle springs are built on land which used to be allotments.