Townfield Lane

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A very old packhorse route that was most likely used in medieval times.  It leads out of the village of Brightholmlee via an old lane, fields and Lee Wood and today joins a footpath alongside More Hall Reservoir. It’s partially enclosed, with stone walls either side, off Thornhouse Lane to Lee wood. There’s a good stone base in places and some of the first part of the route is a ‘holloway’ indicating many years of use before it became wide enough to become a lane. There’s a large old culvert over a brook in Lee Wood, which shows that this was once an important and well-used route. There are signs that the walled lane used to continue across the field as far as the woodland now surrounding the reservoir, which is validated by the 1892 twenty five inch map of the area). Before Morehall Reservoir was built the route crossed Ewden Beck using two different bridges swinging in the direction of More Hall over Emmet Bridge or towards Bolsterstone over Pog Bridge. These routes are shown very clearly on an eighteenth century Fairbanks Map held at Sheffield Archives where the route to Bolsterstone is described as “bridle style to Bradfield”. After Pog Bridge the route went steeply up hill to join Sunny Bank Road (this part of the route is now lost) as is the route to More Hall which is described on the same Fairbanks map as  “own private road and bridge”. Mrs Olive Hepworth, in her booklet ‘Some Historical Notes on Stocksbridge & District’ (compiled in 1959) describe the route over Emmet Bridge as part of the route as being part of a packhorse way that came from Sheffield, which suggests that the route over Emmet Bridge was a major route before More Hall estate existed. 

 

Townfield Lane is shown on the relevant OS map as a public footpath. It is recorded on the Definitive Map as Brightholmlee public Footpath No.115.   If you have any further historical information about this route please share it with us via our website contact details