The Area and Its History
Ranmoor is a suburb of Sheffield about three miles to the west of the city centre. Until the late 1800s it was a separate hamlet linked to adjacent Hangingwater and Nether Green. The Ordnance Survey map from the 1850s shows the area and indicates how few buildings had been built by then.
Nether Green and Hangingwater are slightly to the left below the centre of the map, which also shows field patterns, footpaths and wooded areas. Up to late in the 19th century “Ranmoor” was written as “Rand Moor”. Click on the map to enlarge it.
Much of the area had been owned for centuries by the Dukes of Norfolk. However, the 11th Duke sold large sections of his property soon after 1800, and these became available for the growing population of Sheffield as it developed into a major industrial centre.
Ranmoor proved to be very attractive to wealthy town-dwellers seeking to move into the countryside. They were required by land-owners and house-building societies to accept strict regulations about the size and nature of new buildings, and the area became a fashionable home to wealthy manufacturers and their families.
Large mansions were built in the 1860s by principal Sheffield citizens, including Henry Vickers, Mark Firth (and also two of his brothers) and John Brown, who constructed the imposing Endcliffe Hall. Details of this and many other developments are described in an illustrated book The Growth of Ranmoor, Hangingwater and Nether Green by Peter Warr (2009), available from Amazon.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 4 of this book, outlining the history of Endcliffe Hall.
ranmoorsociety.uk 