Brightfield House: now Mount Pleasant

[Michael L]

Can anyone tell me when Brightfield House (said to have been built in 1786, designed by John Platt of Rotherham, but also said to have been built by Francis Sitwell) had its name changed to Mount Pleasant, and why?

[Greybeard]

Never happened. Mount Pleasant has always borne that name. Brightfield House is across the road on Sharrow lane. The last I remember of it was an hotel, - later converted into apartments ?

 

When constructed, by I think, one of the Wilson (snuff-mill) family, it was initially called Highfield House; but of course there was already a house of that name across the road so the name of the house was changed to Brightfield. After the name of the field it was built in.

[Plain Talker]

The Sitwells, of Renishaw Hall ( the same family of Dame Edith Sitwell fame) were the family who had Mount Pleasant House built in the 1750's. it became an orphanage, a "poor-school" and a driving test centre in its time.

 

It's a listed bulding, and is now an adult education centre which is part of Sheffield College.

 

Brightfield House was built about 50 years later (turn of the 19th century) it became a doctors in latter years until the end of the 1970's, and was then turned into a hotel (IIRC it was called the Charnwod?) it was extended to link to the buildings to the right of it which front onto London Road and housed the "Brasserie Leo".

 

About three or four years ago it was converted into apartments.

[Greybeard]

Hi PT - it was a bit late when I posted last night so I didn't do any digging.

 

Mount Pleasant was in fact built in 1777 by John Platt for Francis Hurt who had changed his name to Sitwell in order to inherit his uncle's Renishaw estate. Here's what Mary Walton had to say about it;-

 

Francis Sitwell used the house as a second residence for many years, but in 1794 his son Sitwell Sitwell sold it to Samuel Broomhead Ward, a gentleman of private means inherited from Joseph Ward, merchant, and his predecessors who, like the Shores, began their trade as "hardwaremen". Ward moved to Mount Pleasant from Nether Edge.

 

The garden ground round Mount Pleasant which Francis had acquired was not extensive, but in 1804 Samuel Broomhead Ward bought the two Chequer Fields and the Goose Green Field from Joseph Cecil, and the allotments along his eastern boundary apparently from the Gledhills, and made a walled park, with a fringe of fine trees as windbreak and guardians of privacy extending from the front gate in Sharrow Lane right round the corner and along London Road to the line of the present Herschel Road.

 

Brightfield house was built 1788/1790 for a man called John Henfry, a scissor smith and then bought, in 1809, by William Wilson of Sharrow Mills. It was he apparentley who wanted to call it Highfield House, but had to settle on another name because of the proximity of Highfield.

 

The confusion between the two seems to have arisen from pictures of the two houses in Chator's book, The Wilsons of Sharrow, that were incorrectly captioned. [Just checked and yes they are !]

 

Anyway this is more for the OP's benefit than yours

[Plain Talker]

Hi greybeard. sorry, i was twenty-some years out in the dates for MPH's being built. I always understood the date of MPH to be 1750/1760 "ish", but as always, am willing to be corrected.

 

I knew the storry of the Sitwell relative changing his name for the purposes of the inheritance. I remember sitwell road going all the way through from Sharrow Lane to Vincent Road, and the roads running off:- Sherrington and Cecil Roads and Mount Pleasant Road itself.

 

I've recently been reading a biog of the Sitwell family of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, focussing on the Renishaw Sitwells:- Dame Edith, Sacheverell and Sir Osbert Sitwell. it's been fascinating reading.

[Greybeard]

Wasn't 'correcting' you PT - just getting the record straight

 

I knew that area pretty well as I delivered papers from Turner's the newsagents on Abbeydale road in the early 1950s. Their shop was in the block between Crowther place and Pawson place.

[Plain Talker]

Wasn't 'correcting' you PT - just getting the record straight

 

I knew that area pretty well as I delivered papers from Turner's the newsagents on Abbeydale road in the early 1950s. Their shop was in the block between Crowther place and Pawson place.

 

Ah, you mean the newsagent that became "Hunter's" newsagent? (my childhood home was accessed by the yard at the very top of Crowther Place, which opened out where the street light is now.) I was at school with the Hunters' daughter, Elaine, in the 70's.

[BLITZER]

Are Sherrington and Cecil roads still there,or have they been demolished and redeveloped?

[Plain Talker]

Are Sherrington and Cecil roads still there,or have they been demolished and redeveloped?

 

no, Sherrington and Cecil Roads were demolished (along with cecil road school) in 1979, mount pleasant park and the (former) new sharrow school (built 1979/80 were built on the site. (Sitwell Road also pretty much vanished, as the school was built over what was Sitwell Soad. al that remains of that is the path right behind mount pleasant house which runs toward Vincent Road.

 

Less than 30 yrs later, they had to rebuild Sharrow Infants, and, last year, the junior school and the nursery/infants schools re-merged and moved into the new building which operned for pupils in sept 2007

 

this is the aerial view of what it pretty much looks like these days. If you zoom in slightly, you may recognise Mount Pleasant House at the top of the picture?

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=GB|mount%20pleasant%20road%20S7%201BA#map=53.36656,-1.47582|16|32&loc=GB:53.36657:-1.4758:16|S7%201BA|S7%201BA

[eileent]

The Sitwells, of Renishaw Hall ( the same family of Dame Edith Sitwell fame) were the family who had Mount Pleasant House built in the 1750's. it became an orphanage, a "poor-school" and a driving test centre in its time.

 

It's a listed building, and is now an adult education centre which is part of Sheffield College.

 

Brightfield House was built about 50 years later (turn of the 19th century) it became a doctors in latter years until the end of the 1970's, and was then turned into a hotel (IIRC it was called the Charnwod?) it was extended to link to the buildings to the right of it which front onto London Road and housed the "Brasserie Leo".

 

About three or four years ago it was converted into apartments.

 

 

Yes I remember when Brightfield House was a doctor's residence in the 1940's.My big sister had crush on the doctor's son.My mum used to refer to him as 'Short pants'