| Description | Brightside Township or Bierlow covered a large rural area to the north of the Don above and below Sheffield Township, the actual hamlet of Brightside being a small cluster of buildings near the river bank below Attercliffe. There are several good maps of farms, particularly Shirecliffe Hall Farm (ACM/MAPS/SheD/701). The township was well wooded. Maps of these woods include two early examples of the work of William Fairbank I.
Brightside was well mapped in connection with the Inclosure Act of 1788. There are comprehensive maps in the Fairbank Collection and a volume of seventeen plans (S86) among the Norfolk muniments, covering the whole area, was made after inclosure. Some of the Duke's allotments under the inclosure award are shown divided up into small lots. Two later maps, covering the whole township in 1827 and 1839, complete this section.
Part of the township adjoined Sheffield town to the north of Lady's Bridge, and included the Wicker and the Duke's Nursery gardens. This area, Pye Bank and Bridgehouses, underwent the same sort of building development as the town and the plans have been grouped separately at the end of the main section.
A separate group of plans of the industrial works in this Township and Attercliffe follows, arranged under the names of mills alphabetically. There are several good plans of these, including an early one (1741) of Brightside Forge and an attractive map of Attercliffe Forge. |