A Dore Architect

Norman Miller Doncaster (1873-1952)

Though he was born in Sheffield and died in Hampshire, Norman Miller Doncaster had strong links with Dore: married in Dore, he lived for at least ten years on Dore Road, and designed several buildings in Dore.

Norman’s background and training

Norman was born in 1873 into a prominent family of Quaker industrialists. He had one brother, Edwin Daniel, born in 1871. Their great-grandfather, Daniel Doncaster I, had established the steel-making company in which their father, Daniel Doncaster III, worked; their uncle Samuel became its Chairman in 1884.

Neither son followed in their father’s footsteps. Norman is recorded in the 1891 census as an architect’s articled pupil. He and Edwin were living with their parents in Broomhall. Although in 1891 Edwin was a steel merchant’s clerk, and was recorded in 1901 as a steel merchant, by 1911 he was an automobile agent and engineer living in Surrey.

Attempts to formalise architect training had been made from the 1830s onwards; the first university architecture courses were offered by King’s and University Colleges, London, in the 1840s. However, in the late 19th century, many architects still received their training as articled pupils, and so Norman’s training was not particularly unusual.

Norman’s first known work

In 1897, Norman’s uncle, Samuel Doncaster, commissioned Norman to design a house and lodge in the garden which he had created on the site of the former Whirlow Quarry. Whinfell was a large half-timbered house in the style known as Kentish Weald; the planned lodge was never built. Samuel’s grandson, Stephen Doncaster, recalled that his grandfather hated the appearance of the house because it was so out of keeping with local vernacular styles (Dore to Door autumn 2003). Sadly, the house was destroyed by fire in 1971. The garden, now named Whinfell Quarry Garden, had been donated to the city in 1968.

Married life

Norman moved to London; in 1901, he was boarding at 20 Queen Square, Holborn. However, on 23rd September 1908, in what the Sheffield Independent (24th September 1908) described as a ‘quiet but extremely pretty wedding’ at Dore Union Church, he married Helen Cooper, youngest daughter of electroplate manufacturer John William Cooper. After a reception at Thornsett, the Coopers’ house on Dore Road, the couple honeymooned in North Devon.

Norman and Helen initially returned to London: the 1911 census records them at 23 Gordon Mansions, St Pancras. However, Norman still had links with Sheffield. He designed Hillsborough Congregational Church (later Wadsley United Reformed Church), built in 1910 in a curiously domestic style resembling a three-storey house; it was converted in 2016 into ten apartments known as Wadsley Chapel Apartments.

Norman and Helen were back in Dore by the time their daughter, Alison Myra, was born in December 1912. By November 1913 at the latest, they were living on Dore Road in Moorwinstow, a house which Norman had designed for them: Mrs N M Doncaster of Moorwinstow, Dore, advertised in the Sheffield Evening Telegraph of 20th November 1913 for a cook-general and a young housemaid. The house’s name may reference Morwenstow, the most northerly parish in Cornwall, which Norman and Helen may have visited on their honeymoon in North Devon.

Like Whinfell, Moorwinstow was influenced by Lutyens, but its style was more appropriate to the area. When it was advertised for sale in 1924, it was said to be “in the style of the 17th Century Derbyshire Manor House” (Sheffield Independent, 16th February 1924), although its Grade II listing on 12th December 1995 described it as a “pastiche of south western vernacular style of c1600”. An article in Country Life (12th April 1930) emphasised Norman’s use of traditional materials and construction methods, and his use of reused materials (for instance, the stone roofing tiles came from houses on Tom Lane demolished by Sheffield Corporation).

Army service

Norman enlisted in the Army in April 1918 after conscription was extended to men aged between 41 and 50; he was 45. He was mobilised in June, as a private (154855) in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He was posted to one of the newly-created Sanitary Companies whose function was to check the sanitation of all barrack areas, cookhouses, and washing facilities, and ensure hygienic waste disposal, incineration etc; they recruited highly-trained personnel such as sanitary inspectors, architects, engineers, and builders.

Norman may not have been as useful to the Sanitary Companies as they had hoped. A memorandum of 2nd July 1918 from the Lieutenant in charge of Posting to the Officer in charge of the RAMC Training Brigade, Blackpool, stated that, in an oral test, he was found to be “good on architectural design – domestic & school work”, but with no “experience in sanitary work – drainage, sewage disposal, etc”.

Nonetheless, he served with the 1st London Sanitary Company, being discharged in January 1919.

Back in Dore

Norman returned to Moorwinstow in 1919, and in November the Dore Church Council accepted his design for the Lych Gate: Dore’s parish war memorial.

According to the Parochial Magazine for August 1919, a brass tablet inscribed with the names of the dead was to be displayed “under cover of the structure”. However, a plaque in the Lych Gate suggests that the tablet was displayed in the church from the outset.

Norman and Helen left Moorwinstow in 1923. The house was advertised for sale in February 1924, and bought by Mary Ann Seaman as a wedding present for her son Wilfred and his wife Nancy, who were married on 12th April 1924.

Wagwood

Norman designed one other house in Dore: Wagwood on Newfield Lane. Built for his cousin, James Henry Doncaster, it is dated to 1926 by an inscription above the front door: “J.H.D 1926 A.C.P.D”. A.C.P.D was James’s wife, Alice Cecilia Page Doncaster (née Lunn). They were married on 24th April 1919, and were certainly living at Wagwood by 1st June 1928, when the Sheffield Daily Telegraph described James as an iron merchant of Wag Wood [sic]. James lived at Wagwood until his death, aged 74, in January 1948.

The New Forest

Norman and Helen left Moorwinstow in 1923. By 1927 at the latest, they were living in Burley, in the New Forest. They probably moved there to be near Norman’s brother Edwin, who had moved to Burley in 1922, and were still living there when Norman died, aged 78, on 17th February 1952.

Norman’s legacy

Sadly, little is known of Norman’s work. All that is known to survive are the lychgate and two houses in Dore, and the former Hillsborough Congregational Church in Sheffield. We have not been able to identify any building later than Wagwood which can be attributed to him. But the Army memo hints at school buildings as well as houses, so he presumably designed other buildings, in the Sheffield area or elsewhere, which we have not been able to identify.

From Sheep to Suit

The American Record

The record for the time taken for expert shearers to shear six sheep, the mill to produce the cloth and the tailors to make a man's suit had stood since 1898. It was held by Thomas Kitson, mill owner, of Pennsylvania who had emigrated from Bradford in 1859. It took six hours and four minutes from shearing to wearable suit. There is of course some dispute about the actual number of minutes. It did, however, beat the previous record set in Galashiels by some two hours.

Sir Malcom Campbell

In June 1931 George Stone was in the news again (see post in November 2023). This time he was going to help break a record. At a Bradford Rotary meeting in April 1931 Sir Malcom Campbell (recently returned from breaking the land speed record in Daytona) made a rousing speech and issued a challenge to the shearers, spinners, weavers and tailors to wrest the record from America. Besides being reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post his speech was reported in newspapers throughout the kingdom.

The Woollen Industry of Yorkshire Rise to the Challenge

The suit was to be made to the measurements of James Henry Thomas, MP for Derby. He was the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs He planned to wear the record-breaking suit at the Imperial Wool Industry Fair in Bradford in July, when replicas of the record-breaking suit would be worn by male mannequins. He also promised to wear the suit that broke the record on his forthcoming visit to Canada.

The attacks on the record were planned for Tuesday June 22nd at Batley and 23rd June at Huddersfield with Lady Campbell acting as scrutineer. The Batley plan was for Messrs. Taylors to have the cloth ready for the tailors in five hours and the tailors reckoned they could make the suit in under 45 minutes. On the Tuesday ten sheep were sheared, the cloth made and dyed and taken to the tailors in Leeds. The whole process taking 3 hours and 8 minutes.

Our Local Shearers Make for Huddersfield

And on to Wednesday. Mr Ben Hind, managing director of Burgin and Ball, took six shearers to Huddersfield, including George Stone, where they were to use the hand shears manufactured by Burgin and Ball. Each shearer, who were not experts, had to shear two sheep in under eight minutes. (Australian shearers could shear a sheep in two minutes.)

It seems much effort was made to gain this record of two hours, nine minutes and 46 seconds. The dozen sheep came from Kent and Messrs Crowther used a new type of tentering machine, which caused some controversy, and used their fastest workers. So it is a wonder they were happy to use the inexperienced shearers from the moors around Dore. George, after all, was a gamekeeper and Tom Rowarth an inn-keeper. More detail of the process can be found on page 7 of the Leeds Mercury for Thursday 25 June 1931

Christ Church, Dore

The Chapel of Ease

Not everyone can date a church at a glance so may not realise that Christ Church, Dore was only built in 1829 to replace the semi–derelict chapel of ease which stood nearby. To celebrate in 2025 the reopening of the church after a major refurbishment this piece takes us back to the plans set out for the original church. You may be surprised who was involved and what the church looked like at first.

Early pictures of the church are scant, as indeed they are for the original chapel of ease. The chapel of ease is first documented in the early seventeenth century. We have to rely on paintings and sketches, which are possibly not truly accurate, to know what it looked like.

In this sketch of the chapel of ease, by an unknown artist, the village stocks are drawn in. A bell hung between the two gables and there was a sun dial over the door. The village school is visible on the right hand side of the sketch.

Richard Furness: schoolmaster

We know that the original plans and ideas for the new church were produced by Richard Furness, Schoolmaster of Dore….and much more. Richard Furness is sometimes referred to as 'the Poet of the Peak' being the writer and composer of poetry, music, Christmas carols and more. In his own words he says of himself:

I Richard Furness, schoolmaster, Dore.
Keep parish books and pay the poor;
Draw plans for buildings and indite
Letters for those who cannot write;
Make wills and recommend a proctor.
Cure wounds, let blood with any doctor
Draw teeth, sing psalms, the hautboy play
At chapel on each holy day;
Paint sign–boards, cut names at command.
Survey and plot estates of land,
Collect at Easter one in ten –
And on Sunday, say Amen.

Idle boasting or did he really have skills in all these areas? We are looking merely at his surveying and ability to work in stone as a sculptor. To find out if he really was a genius in so many fields look no further than Josie Dunmore's excellent book "I, Richard Furness" The Life and Works (1791 – 1857).

This drawing of the church, the school and the vicarage can be dated to around 1861 when new Gothic style windows were fitted. If local folklore is to be believed Richard Furness not only set out the plans of the new church to replace the old chapel of ease but sculpted the pinnacles atop the tower, having been persuaded by friends in 1828 to submit a plan.

This is the earliest postcard of the church held in Dore Archives. It dates from between 1881 and 1896. In 1881 major works were carried out (a report of which can be found in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of 22nd of May 1881). The photograph shows the church before the chancel was extended in 1896.

Richard Furness: the original plans

Richard Furness wrote very detailed specifications for the church. These are held by Sheffield Archives. The following gives a flavour:

The building should be 48 feet long and 36 feet wide, reaching a ceiling height of 21 feet.
There should be a nave but no chancel.
There should be a tower 48 feet high with a clock.
Building materials should use whatever was serviceable from the old chapel.

To read the full specification click here (opens in a new tab)

Of salvageable building material there cannot have been much, because an inspection visit to the old chapel in 1823 said the chapel had 'cracked and bulging walls and three frightful wooden pillars down the centre, supporting the roof, which were decayed and let in the rain.'

John Leather: civil engineer

The specifications of Richard Furness were translated into workable architects plans by John Leather, a civil engineer of Sheffield. Leather's specification was approved by the Diocese. The plans are held in Lambeth Palace Library. Above you can see the main floor plan. A second plan shows the gallery and lists the names of those allotted pews. To view the plans click here (opens in a new tab).

Work began on the augmented plans under the general direction of Albert Smith as church warden, and the practical supervision of Richard Furness. It was Richard who would oversee the work of the numerous masons, carpenters, slaters, glaziers and plasterers.

There will be several surprises immediately noticeable. The new church is square. There is no choir vestry. The outer door is on the south side. All the windows are diamond leaded lights. There is a substantial gallery. Richard Furness lived long enough to see in 1854 the first stained glass window in the east end of 'his' church be fitted. We can surmise that the vicar at this time, the Reverend Aldred, and Richard would chat about their mutual interest in architecture and antiquities.

Derbyshire Slate

There was one error of judgement involved in the materials suggested by Richard and used on the build. In 1879 to 1881 substantial alterations to the roofing material had to be made. In Richard's original plans he had specified what is known locally as Derbyshire slate to be used. This is a thin layered sandstone still seen on many of the oldest buildings around Dore. However it had proved too heavy for the roof timbers and had to be replaced with lighter slate tiles.

The Disappearing Font

At round about the same time as other alterations were taking place, the font which Richard is believed to have carved, was replaced with the present font.

For a time it stood as a bird bath in the churchyard. Around the year 2000 it mysteriously disappeared!

From 829 to 2029

And now we have the third major alteration to Christ Church nearly in time for its 200th Anniversary in 2029.

This will be an auspicious year in Dore because it will mark 1,200 years since King Egbert of Wessex and King Eanred of Northumbria met in Dore, leading to effectively the creation of England.

King Ecgbert's Head

Why do we mention these events in the same breath as Richard Furness? Richard is purported to have taken stone from the old chapel of ease and carved the head of King Ecgbert as a present for his son, William Furness, as he took up residence in the new Whirlow Hall. And it’s still there today in the top yard at Whirlow Hall Farm!

The Tradition of Maypole Dancing

May Day Celebrations

The first of May was a time of fun and revelry, with its roots going back to Celtic pagan times. It marked a time of fertility after the dark days of Winter. Dore as a farming community would be well aware of seasons and the impact on lives if harvests failed.

So, Dore would crown a May Queen and her consort the May King, to oversee the dancing which would guarantee good fortune. The May Pole would be erected with its coloured ribbons which are woven through dancing into a range of patterns down the pole. At the top is a crown of flowers welcoming the return of Summer.

From the clothing being worn in the photograph the date of this Maypole Dance is probably about 1910. In the background is the Reverend Gibson who first came to Dore in 1895. The Maypole with its garland crown on top has been erected on Dore's cricket pitch better known as Brunsmeer Football Ground now.

Here is another photograph taken at a similar time to the first. The May Queen and May King can be seen in the background, and the traditional 'crown' on the top of the Maypole is visible. Note that the dancers have garlands in their hair.

Beltane and the Importance of Trees

Trees, in particular hawthorne, figure in the celebration of May Day (or Beltane as it was called in pagan times). There would have been a procession towards the Maypole, the selection of the May Queen and the presence of Jack‐in‐the‐Green who was a relic from those days when our ancestors worshipped trees.

Here are two old sayings about trees. One is a weather forcast:

Oak before Ash we are in for a splash,
Ash before Oak we are in for a soak.

The other is useful if you find yourself caught in a thunderstorm since oak and ash trees tend to be the giants of a wooded area whereas the hawthorn is closer to the ground.

Beware the Oak, it draws a stroke,
Avoid the Ash, it courts a flash,
Creep under a thorn, it will save you from harm.

Although the tradition of dancing around the Maypole is fading out in Derbyshire and beyond; in Dore, slightly out of season, we can see Maypole dancing carried out by Dore's Brownies at Dore Gala. Usually there is a 'caller' who directs the turns of the dancers until the ribbons are woven. In the top photograph it would be the lady on the right who may well have been one of the teachers from Dore School. As today the adults in the background are undoubtedly proud parents.

And this being the month of May 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out'. 'Clout' is dialect for warm clothing and May refers to may blossom on the hawthorn.

Mary Ann Smith - An Extraordinary Life

MARY ANN SMITH (?1852-1914)

Mary Ann Smith’s father, William, was a Northumbrian from Hexham who came south to serve as a trooper in the 1st Life Guards. In 1850 we meet him married to Elizabeth from Hertford and stationed at Windsor where their first child, another Elizabeth, is born. By March 1851 the family including Elizabeth’s young dressmaker sister Mary Ann have moved to 81 Albany Street, opposite Regents Park Barracks. Little Elizabeth is followed by three sisters: our Mary Ann, born in Brompton, then on the western outskirts of London, between 8 April 1852 and 7 April 1853, Fanny Jane two years later and Rosa (Rose) after two more years.

Our next picture of the Smiths is in 1861. Describing himself now as ‘licensed victualler’, William was the landlord of the Black Jack pub at 11 Portsmouth Street on the SW corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The street is still there but not the pub. Black Jacks were leather beer jugs coated with tar. As well as the family the household comprised two servants and seven workmen lodgers.

Where the family were in 1871 is anyone’s guess but in 1881 Mary Ann resurfaces—in Sheffield! Her address is 58 High Street, where she is a draper’s assistant and head of a small household of three younger draper’s assistants, a cook and a housemaid, six of her employer’s 19 female and 5 male staff. Ten years on, across High Street, she heads a list of 22 female employees, which by 1901 has risen to 54. They are working at Walsh’s.

John Walsh Ltd, Sheffield

Walsh’s occupied a large block on what is now the corner of Arundel Gate, opposite the Castle Square tram stop. After spending nine years as a buyer of baby linen and ladies’ clothing at Cockayne’s store, Irishman John Walsh had opened a small shop selling similar goods at no. 39 on the north side of High Street in 1875. Expanding steadily on the other side during Mary Ann’s time, the business became a superior department store and restaurant. It survived partial enforced demolition for street widening in 1895, then in 1897 John Walsh commissioned the well-known architectural practice Flockton and Gibbs to design a new store. Walsh’s became a limited company in 1902. Its trade directory entry for 1903 is shown here.

The Sheffield Blitz

It was wrecked on the first night of the Sheffield blitz, 12 December 1940, but continued in other premises until Harrods took over the company in 1946, cleared the High Street site, rebuilt the store and reopened it in 1953. A further takeover six years later by House of Fraser led to the replacement of Walsh’s name successively by Rackhams and House of Fraser until the store’s closure in 1998.

The firm’s personnel archives were probably destroyed in the war, but public records fill gaps in Mary Ann’s story. What do we have in Dore? Her neglected grave comprises a small headstone and a low all-round kerb. They bear an inscription starting on the headstone and continuing along the kerb sides from left to right: ‘In Loving Memory of Mary Ann Smith who died at Dore 8th January 1914 in her 61st year. Gone but not forgotten’.

The words ‘who died at Dore’ seemed to imply that she was on a visit, but she turned out to be a resident, if only briefly. The Dore burials register added where she died: ‘Mary Ann Smith of Woodland View, Dore, 10 January 1914, aged 61’ (not as on the stone).

Sheffield and Rotherham Licensed Victuallers Association

Woodland View is the picturesque building opposite the station, originally constructed in 1878-79 by the Sheffield and Rotherham Licensed Victuallers Association as sheltered housing for former pub landlords and landladies when its former site in Grimesthorpe became unhealthy. It consists of twelve terraced cottages with a central hall. Along with one of the cottages this was rented by local freemasons for lodge meetings from 1890 until 1951 when they bought the whole premises.

Mary Ann's Burial in Dore

On the morning of the funeral this announcement appeared in the Sheffield Independent: ‘DEATHS … SMITH. – On the 8th January, Mary Ann Smith (late of 64, High Street), at 12, Woodview, Dore. Interment at Dore Church, this day (Saturday), at 3 o’clock’. Despite the faulty address this helps to pinpoint the places where she had recently lived and died. 64 High Street was residential accommodation for Walsh’s staff. 12 Woodland View was at the far end of the range of cottages from Dore Road in both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses (on left, in shadow) but Mary Ann wasn’t yet there. We don’t know how she came to be at no. 12—perhaps her father’s occupation had something to do with it—but right from the start of the LVA in Dore people from backgrounds other than the licensed trade predominated among its residents.

Mary Ann's Death Certificate

Her death was reported two days later to Fred C. Bone, Dore’s schoolmaster and local registrar, by her unmarried elder sister and recent carer Elizabeth. Its certified causes were general debility for six months and a weak heart for four; she had also suffered from dropsy (œdema) for three months. But note Elizabeth’s description of her sister’s occupation.

In 1891 Walsh’s had designated her with her female colleagues as ‘Draper’s Shopwoman’ and in 1901 as ‘Draper’s Assistant’. Her sister, however, wanted to do her justice: ‘Buyer and Saleswoman at Drapery Establishment’. As a buyer she stood out among her colleagues.

Mary Ann's Legacy

The final two documents are Mary Ann’s will and grant of probate. She made bequests to her sister Fanny Dakers and her three nephews in South Africa, her sister Rose Martyn in New Zealand, and several work colleagues and friends, and she set up a residuary trust fund for her sister Elizabeth. The great surprise is the value of her estate, about £2500, worth in purchasing power over £300,000 today. How did she amass all this?

As an early recruit to Walsh’s Mary Ann showed leadership of her women colleagues from the start. Within some 30 years she had achieved a similar degree of expertise as had John Walsh himself when he founded the firm.

This short account of her life has been written for Women’s History Month 2025 in the hope of revitalising that inscription in Dore churchyard: ‘Gone but not forgotten’.