The History of Manor Oaks
In the 18th century the Manor Oaks farm was a part of the Duke of Norfolk's estate and increasingly divided between tenant farmers and industrial areas. Manor Oaks became establisghed with the first phase of the farmhouse, built and developed alongside boundary walls and enclosed field systems. Livestock were kept on the fields around Manor Oaks and farm operations expanded into dairy production and brewing.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries the farm was increasingly devoted to dairying, providing milk for the rapidly industrialising city of Sheffield. William Barker, the tenant farmer for a period during the 19th century, employed five workers on the farm, three of whom lived on the farm itself. Personal and photographic evidence note how that, during this period, the majority of the work on the farm was not mechanised. Douglas Bramall, son of a tenant of Manor Oaks farm, recollects:
"In those days propulsive power on the farm was provided by horses rather than tractors, and it was one of Oscar’s particular pleasures to breed his own team of Shire horses for ploughing and haulage. These horses, all of whom bore the prefix ‘Manor Oaks’ (e.g. Manor Oaks Beauty) were regularly entered at the local Country Shows where, according to family legend, they enjoyed great success. Describing this time almost a century ago, it is difficult to comprehend what life before the internal combustion engine must have been like. Dad helped on the farm from an early age and as an adolescent he remembered driving cattle along what are now busy Sheffield roads like Abbey Lane. There were also occasions when he went further afield, for example to Bakewell market from which he recalled riding home (a distance of some 13 miles) on a newly purchased horse - and having to stop overnight at the Duke of Devonshire’s stables at Pilsley when that same horse fell ill. There were other, more sombre times: for instance taking cartloads of straw to fill the mattresses at the Fir Vale Work House, now the site of the Northern General Hospital."
During the First World War the farm held a strategic importance as it was located on a hill in the centre of Sheffield, an anti-aircraft battery was established to see off early forms of aerial bombardment from Zepplin raids. Oral tradition recollects that the guns didn't fire during a 1916 Zepplin raid as all the officers were attending a function at Cutler's Hall in Sheffield.
After the First World War the fortunes of Manor Oaks declined. An agricultural depression was precipitated by the removal of government subsidies for agriculture and areas reliant on agriculture across the country entered a steep decline. The inhabitants of Manor oaks followed agricultural workers elsewhere in emigrating to urban areas. The fate of the farm was sealed by a decision by Sheffield City Council to build a housing estate on the land of Sheffield Manor, including Manor Oaks, in the inter-war and immediate post-war years. Although to the benefit of the Duke of Norfolk the tenant farmers were forced to sell their equipment and move to other areas of Sheffield. Although the farmhouse survived it's farmland was increasingly encroached upon by urban development and entered a steep decline. Douglas Bramall remembers:
"I gather that, after he and his parents left Manor Oaks, the farmhouse was converted into a Working Men’s Club, a change which the family found profoundly distressing. When my son Jonathan and I located the old farmhouse a few years ago, it had slipped even further in status to become a site for the sale of scrap car parts. I can understand dad’s reluctance to return."
