Sid’s Sites: Memories of Heeley by Sid Wetherill

Eliza Selkirk lived in a semi-detached cottage called Ivy, the other was called Rose, they were built for the farmers labourers employed by Farmer Booker at Lees Hall at the top of Cat Lane. The stone gate posts at the top of Carr Wood are still there. His grave stone and monumental inscription can still be seen in St James’ churchyard at Norton, but his two son  in laws, the Butchers, and their Aunt are buried in Norton Cemetery, Derbyshire Lane. When Terry Smith a plastering contractor purchased the cottages and altered them into a detached house, he inserted a date stone of 1885 into the brickwork but it is not correct. Eliza, Gertrude, and Florence were born at one of the cottages, daughters of William Bell,farm labourer. Eliza was born in 1878 and all were baptised at Heeley Church.   

Sadly the parapet wall that Eliza Selkirk was sat on has been pushed into the river by vandals and it has never been rebuilt.   At one time going over the bridge you would have been leaving Yorkshire and entering Derbyshire. Lees Hall is much older than the bridge, so the early owners would have had to ford the river to do their business in Sheffield. One of the owners was a Mr Ellin who owned Vulcan Dam on the River Porter, now the site of Staples and Mothercare, Ellin Street was demolished for that development. I was a school friend of Ernest Selkirk, grandson of Eliza, who lived next door at Rose cottage, we spent many hours fishing for billies and bullies, even trout could be caught under the bridge on Carfield Lane.