Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 3.djvu/449

SHEET. 437 SHEFFIELD. angular in form, and is surrounded by a massive wall which cost 40,000, and is 24 feot high, except at the side which abuts on the water. It contains three basins, one of which, the largest, has 26 feet depth of water. This basin is 620 feet long and 300 feet broad, with an entrance of 60 feet wide. The middle basin is 250 feet by 200, and the northern basin 282 feet by 200. There are also three dry docks and a frigate dock, or more correctly speaking, a fitting dock, near which is the storehouse, six stories high, and capable of holding 30,000 tons of naval stores. There are besides victualling storehouses, mast house, sail-loft, rigging-house, navy pay-office, military guard- house, police station, work- shops, and numerous sheds. Much of the space now covered by the government works was occupied by houses previous to 1815, so that Blue-town was formerly much larger than it now is. Mile-town is the next most ancient portion of the town, and consists chiefly of one long, irregularly-built street. The other divisions, called Banks-town and Marine-town, are regularly built, and contain sume of the best houses in Sheerness. The streets are paved and lighted with gas, and the drainage and watorsupply have recently beenmuchimprovedunder the supervision of the local board of health. The inha- bitants suffered much from want of water in the last century, previously to the sinking of the wells, of which one is situated in Ordnance Marsh ; another, 360 feet deep, in Blue-town ; a third in the dockyard ; and others in Mile-town. The principal public institutions unconnected with the government works are the new County Court house, at which sessions are held monthly, a mechanics' institute, with library and reading-rooms, where lectures are delivered during the winter months, a savings-bank, branch office of the London and County Bank, union poorhouse, railway terminus, police and coastguard stations, and a cemetery company. Besides the dockyard business, a considerable trade is done in corn and seeds, and in supplying shipping. One weekly newspaper is published in the town. The population of the town in 1861 was 12,015, but of the ecclesiastical district 13,186. A pier and causeway extend from the town to low-water mark, a distance of about a quarter of a mile, and forms a promenade. The view from the cliffs leading to Minster, embracing the North Sea on the E. ; the rivers Thames and Medway, bearing innu- merable vessels of all sizes, on the W. ; the Nore and the harbour of Sheerness on the N. ; and the fertile valleys of Kent, with the Medway winding through them, on the S. The living is a perpet. cur. in the dioo. of Canterbury, val. 200, in the patron, of the Incum- bent of Minster. The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected in 1835, and situated between Banks-town and Mile-town. There is also a government chapel situated at the upper end of Blue-town, abutting on the north-eastern point of the dockyard, but without the walls. There are also places of worship belonging to the Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, and a Jews' synagogue. The places of education include two National schools for boys and girls, a British and Foreign school, five Sunday-schools, one infant school, besides several private educational establishments. Market day is on Saturday, but there is no regular market place. SHEET, a tythg. in the par. of Petersfield, lower half div. of Finch Dean hund., co. Hants, 1 mile N.E. of Petersfield. SHEET, a tnshp. in the par. of Ludford, co. Salop, 1 mile E. of Ludlow. SHEFFIELD, a par., market town, municipal and parliamentary borough, and chief seat of the hardware nmnufacture, in the upper div. of Strafforth wap., and the capital of the ancient lib. of Hallamshire, West Itiding co. York, 60 miles S.8.W. of York, and 162 N.W. of London by road, or 162* by the Great North- cm, and 175J oy the North- Western and Midland railways. Although not situated on the direct route of the great N. and 8. railway lines, Sheffield is a considerable railway centre, communicating by a chain of small railways with the whole railway system of the kingdom. The Victoria station, belonging to the Greut Northern and Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln- shire railways, is built with massive stone arches and piers, and covered with a roof of iron and glass. There is another large station in the Wicker, belonging to the Midland and London and North- Western railways, which also serves for the South Yorkshire line opened in 1855. The Sheffield, Eotherham, and Barnsley railway, with branch lines to the Silkstone collieries and Dodworth, has a station in the town. A branch canal, 4 miles long, was cut in 1819, communicating with the Don, or Dun, at Tinsley, thus affording direct water communication with the river system of the Trent and Humber, and so with the seaports of Goole, Hull, and Great Grimsby. The prosperity of the town, which now ranks second for wealth and population in Yorkshire, is in a great measure dependent on its geographical position, being seated in the midst of a district abound- ing in iron-ore, stone, and coal, and supplied with water power by several mountain streams which here join the Don. On all sides, with the exception of towards Doncaster, Sheffield is encompassed by an amphitheatre of hills, forming part of that extensive range of summits which stretches across the centre of the island, from Staffordshire to Westmoreland. From the eanern foot of these hills to the borders of Derbyshire sketches the par. of Sheffield, including the six tnshps. of Nether Hallam, Upper Hallam, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield, Brightside Bierlow, and Attercliffe-cum-Darnal, with the curs, of Dyer's Hill, Eldon, Fulwood, Heeley, Holliscroft, Moorfields, Pitsmoor, and Wicker, and about 60 other vils. and hmlts. The physical con- figuration of this district differs in various parts, but that portion on which the town of Sheffield stands is a sheltered valley overhung by the wooded heights of Wincobank, and watered by the streams of the Sheaf, from which the town takes its name, the Porter, and two other rivers, which all unite their waters at this point with the Don, on which much labour and expense has been bestowed to render it navigable. Although the present town is comparatively of recent growth, it probably originated from the Koman station at Templebro' about 3 miles distant on the bank of the Don, supposed to be the Ad Fines of the Iter of Richard of Cirencester, and traces of a Roman road, still called the Roman Rig, lead from the camp at Wincobank. Some antiquaries have suggested that the iron mines in this neighbourhood were worked by the Romans, and afterwards by the Saxons, but no such workings have as yet been identified, though many beds of ancient scoria are scattered over the surface. At the time of the Domesday Survey, the manor was held by Roger de Busli, under the Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, and widow of Waltheof, Earl of Northum- berland. It subsequently passed, through the marriage of the Countess Judith, to the family of St. Liz, Earls of Northampton, and afterwards to the Lovetots and Furnivals, who built the castle, and a bridge over the Don, and founded a hospital on the site still known as Spital Hill. In 1296 Edward I. granted to Thomas, Lord Furnival, a charter to hold a weekly market and an annual fair, and in the following year the town was made a free borough, with exemption from toll through- out Hallamshire. From the Furnivals, the castle and lordship passed by marriage to the Nevills, and from them to the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, one of whom, George, the fourth earl, in the reign of Henry VIII., built the manor house in the park, where Cardinal Wolsey was imprisoned in 1530, before his death at Leicester. In 1554, Francis, fifth Earl of Shrewsbury, obtained from Queen Mary a charter creating the "church burgesses" a body corporate, with a common soal, and power to provide for the repair of the chuich and relief of the poor. In the reign of Elizabuth, Sheffield Castle was the place of imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots from 1670 to 1684, and about the same period the town greatly increased in prosperity from the influx of skilled artisans from tha Nether- lauds, who, having fled from the persecutions of tha