Manor Castle Village

By the beginning of the 19th century there was little to remind people of the former grandeur of the Manor Lodge. However; local farmers, cutlers and coal miners had transformed it into a self-contained hamlet, remote from the rest of Sheffield, with shops, a chapel and a beer house.

Around the Duke of Norfolk’s mining operations and Manor Lodge ruins a community of miners grew up, with basic and harsh working conditions. The Manor cock-pit drew gamblers from far and wide and one of the cottages was made into a beer house known appropriately as The Norfolk Arms. Alongside this side to the Village a religious sentiment flourished, based around the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel associated with "Praying William" Cowlishaw.

However with time the community drifted away towards larger collieries, such as the Nunnery Colliery which opened in 1870. The mining operations around Manor Lodge closed for good in 1896.