History
The name Bole Hill- also sometimes written as Bail Hill – means a place where lead was formally smelted in the open air. The bole was usually at the top of a hill where the wind was strong and this certainly fits with the landscape of the wood and surrounding area, which is around 550 feet above sea level. The lead ore would have been brought by packhorse from Derbyshire, with the woods being coppiced to provide fuel for the smelting.
There are many places named Bole Hill because of the connection to lead smelting, and our Bole Hill wood is a designated area of natural history interest, having been woodland since at least 1805. The area appears on the 1805 map as Bole Hill wood, with the landlord and tenant at the time both recorded as being Samuel Shore (senior). Born into one of the richest families in Sheffield, who once owned nearby Norton Hall, Mr Shore was at one time one of the most influential men in the north of England, setting up a local branch of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and residing in Meersbrook Hall until his death. His bust is believed to have been carved by Sir Francis Chantrey.
We have found evidence of the wood covering a much larger area on a map from 1840, when it spanned the entire hillside from Cobnar Road (formally Bole Hill Lane) to Scarsdale Road (formally Green Lane). On an 1845 map the wood is listed as Perigo wood, with landlord and tenant being Barnett Benjamin Broughton Pegge, whose family owned Beauchief Hall. However, in 1849 the Shore estate was sold and the wood was referred to in the sales particulars as field 273- Lee Carr and Bole Hill wood.
Once part of Derbyshire, the area became part of Sheffield in 1901, as the city expanded and the villages of Woodseats and Norton Lees grew. The wood became smaller and smaller, as new houses were built reaching up the hillside from the main Chesterfield Road at the bottom.
Local legend describes the wood being felled at least twice- once around 1900 and again some time in the 1930s. In 1900, the felled wood was used to create a giant bonfire somewhere on the hillside near Abbey View Road, to celebrate the relief of Mafeking by Robert Baden Powell in May of that year. This fire would have been seen from miles around.
More recently, the bottom part of the wood was used as allotments but most are now overgrown and abandoned. There are numerous well used footpaths running through the wood, including one that is hundreds of years old, with the old dry stone wall adjacent to the footpath next to Bole Hill dating from before 1880.
Local residents have always protected the woods: there was a threat to development in 1996 and an action group was formed. Development was refused. There have been other unsuccessful attempts to develop too, from Wellcarr Road, Cherry Bank Road and Bole Hill. Residents campaigned then to save this historic and locally important habitat and we continue to do so to preserve it for future inhabitants of Norton Lees and Woodseats.
