Hi Karen et al, A little information on the Old Park Silver Mill which may be of interest. Old Park Silver Mills were established somewhere between 1762 and 1765 by a Mr. Joseph Hancock. Hancock was an ex-apprentice of Thomas Boulsover, the discoverer of the method of making Old Sheffield Plate; he started the Old Park Mills primarily to roll nothing else but that lamination of silver upon copper, which was Sheffield Plate. Hancock’s first essays in this trade, in which he also produced finished plated goods, were done by mills operated entirely by hand. He then progressed to the use of horses as the prime movers of his mill but soon conceived that waterpower harnessed by the water wheel would provide a reliable, more efficient and more enduring source of power. It was on this realisation that he moved his premises from Union Road to set up the Old Park Mills in Club Mill Road. Hancock was the first to use water power for Sheffield Plate rolling and though the invention was Boulsover’s, there is little doubt that Hancock played the greater part in making a local i! ndustry out of it. Hancock however eventually withdrew from the manufacture of plated goods and concentrated solely on rolling the plated metal for other manufacturers. He established a considerable business in this respect, which has been continued ever since as far as the rolling of silver for the free trade is concerned. Old Sheffield Plate is now a collector’s metal and no longer a marketable product, but it interesting to note that these mills are today still drawing upon their century and a half of experience in what might be termed ‘lamination rolling’, by producing considerable quantities of bi-metal strip for the electrical industry. The site of the Old Park Mills is on the left bank of the Don immediately opposite the spot at which the combined waters of the Rivelin and Loxley flow into the parent stream. In 1864 this was to prove a near-disaster, for when the Bradfield (Dale Dyke) dam burst its walls on the night of 11th/12th March of that year, it was the Loxley that brought down that slamming bore of water which killed some 50 people, razed works and private dwellings impartially and cast up its wreckage as far down stream as Doncaster. The smash of the flood completely removed one mill shop and attendant furnaces at Old Park Silver Mills and did many hundreds of pounds’ worth of other damage. Recovery was a slow and laborious business but under Mr. William Hobson Peace, who succeeded in control the Mr. W Houldsworth for whom we (Davy Bros.) built the water wheel in 1858-9*, the Old Park Mills re-established themselves as the main rollers to the silver trade in Sheffield. Davy’s contribution to the development of this celebrated Sheffield firm did not end with the building of this one water wheel. In 1928 we provided a new 500 h.p. electric drive to replace the steam engine installed in 1875 in the Old Park’s largest mill, which is mainly concerned with cold rolling silver in wide sheets. In 1935 we (Davy’s) supplied new pinions, pinion housings and bedplate to the 18 in. x 28 in. mill, while as recently as 1952 we were able to do a rapid remetalling job on bearing shells on the 500 h.p. drive against a particularly urgent delivery request. The quotation for this wheel is dated 1st December 1858 and is for a Water Wheel and Drive at an all in cost exclusive of masonry and woodwork of £190. Subsequent research established that this quotation was in fact accepted and the Wheel installed. As the Old Park Silver Mill’s ledger entry of 31st December, 1859 shows, however, the finally agreed purchase price was reduced to £155, possibly due to modifications to the original design, while – let us whisper this – a further sum of £7-17-00 – was added as “half the cost of altering the above wheel including Rhodes’ a/c & mason’s work. The water wheel was used to drive four pairs of Cross Rolls and it continued to work regularly and well up to 1920. At some time around 1900, a shaft was fitted to provide an additional drive for an unknown enthusiast’s small model making lathe through the floor of a private workshop. During the 1914/18 War, the Wheel and the Cross Rolling Mill worked almost round the clock on Government work. In 1920 however, the water wheel was taken out and replaced by an electric motor drive. This replacement was done free of charge by Sheffield Corporation as the new Neepsend Power Station required the water rights for cooling purposes. The changeover was satisfactory to both parties, however, since prior to the introduction of the electric drive, the Water Wheel had frequently had to stop work through the power station taking water from the goit, which supplied the Wheel from the River Don. From ‘The Anvil’, Vol. 3, No. 2. The house magazine of Davy Brothers. The Old Park Silver Mill The rolling mill was built by Joseph Hancock in 1764, shown by a field-book entry for laying floors in the glazing and rolling mill. The land appears to have belonged to the Burtons, who owned it in 1794. Hancock was a former apprentice to Thomas Boulsover, inventor of Old Sheffield Plate. It is likely that his mill was put up near the paper mill known to have stood near the Old Park corn mill in 1749 and 1754, but whose early history is unknown. References to the paper mill continue until 1788, but in 1794 and 1795 two rolling mills were mapped and described, and it is likely that the second replaced the paper mill. The 1795 description contains important detail: one mill was for rolling plated copper, and was driven by an undershot wheel of 12 feet diameter and 4ft. 3in. wide; the other was for finishing plate and for rolling silver, powered by a new undershot wheel of 18ft. diameter and 3ft. 7in. width, built by a mill-wright named Machin. When both mills were working and! no water was running into the dam, they would use the supply in 15 minutes. Ebenezer Hancock worked the mills in 1815, but John Houldsworth was tenant by 1824, when surveys include details of the wheels; William Houldsworth was tenant by 1841, and is recorded in directories and the Brightside rate books until 1860. A new water wheel was tendered for in 1858 by Davy Brothers, and appears to have been installed. At the time of the 1864 Loxley Flood, William Peace, whose claim for damage totalled £1932-00-00, of which £1720-00-00 was agreed, operated the mills. The mill opposite the outflow of the Loxley was badly damaged; it was claimed that silver was lost, and a reference to steam pipes suggests that an engine may have been in use. An invoice for repairing a water wheel has survived, from Alfred Wilson of Owlerton, millwright. The Old Park Silver Mills Co. as it was known from about 1880, worked until the 1950s, succeeded by the Sheffield Rolling Co., who operated the work! s until 1980. The larger mill was changed from water to steam power in 1875, and the others were converted to electric operation in 1920. One waterwheel was recorded in 1895. The dam was filled in about 1929. The area of the dam has been built over. The buildings have been much altered, but the house, although derelict, is recognisably that shown in W. Botham’s early-19th-century(c.1800) painting. Two partly filled in tailraces can be traced to their outfalls. From ‘Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers’, by David Crossley Dave Yates -- Whatever you Wanadoo: http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/time/ This email has been checked for most known viruses - find out more at: http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/help/id/7098.htm