About Hillsborough and Owlerton

What’s in a name?
Without a doubt Owlerton came first. As early as 1297 there was a Manor of Owlerton when Thomas de Schefeld was Lord. It is not certain when the actual manor house was built but it is known that by 1549 the Creswycks were living at Owlerton Hall. This stood in a spot near to the corner of Bradfield Rd and Penistone Rd and was demolished in the 1930’s.

The exact site is probably somewhere under the dual carriage-way which is now Penistone Rd. Succeeding Lords of the Manor were the Staceys, the Southabys, the Bamforths and the Burgoynes some of whom have left their mark on street names in the area such as Burgoyne Rd. One branch of the Bamforths actually had a house in what is now Bamforth Street. Owlerton of course gives Sheffield Wednesday Football Club its nickname of the ‘Owls’. Some believe that the name Owlerton was actually coined because of the plentiful growth of Alder trees in the locality.

The name of Hillsborough given to the district is much more recent. Hillsborough Hall was built in 1779 by Thomas Steade who lived in the nearby Burrowlee House. The whole area was very rural. Thomas Steade apparently named the Hall after Lord Downside’s residence in County Down, Northern Ireland which was also called Hillsborough. Apparently he was an admirer of Lord Downside who was a patron. It was subsequently owned by John Rimmington Wilson, John Rodgers of the famous cutlery firm and finally as a family home by James Willis Dixon of the world famous silversmiths whose works were in Cornish Place.

Eventually after the death of James Willis junior in 1890 the estate was split into lots and Sheffield Corporation bought the lot which included the hall and 50 acres which became Hillsborough Park. The hall (see picture right) became the Hillsborough Library and still fulfils that function today. Other buildings such as Hillsborough Inn and Hillsborough Barracks took the name from the Hall. This pattern continued and today people refer to Hillsborough Shopping Centre. The Dixon family were responsible for the names of several roads near to the Hall. The new development in the early 1900s was built on what had been part of their estate. There is Dixon Road and coming off that roads such as Wynyard, Lennox, Warner and Dorothy as well as Willis and Shepperson all of which are named after family members or their friends.