Eccleshill c.1845

2.120   ECC c.1845 PLA  BHM 1754 B27

An Eccleshill Field Map

Material: paper  Scale: Unk.  Size:77*45cm  Condition: poor

Keywords: Eccleshill

There is no provenance for this map and it includes no title or date. It is valuable because all the fields in Eccleshill are named and the position of all watercourses, roads, trackways and footpaths are recorded. No land-owners are noted on the map but the fields are numbered and I presume there was once an accompanying list or index. The central section which shows Eccleshill village itself.

The lines are faint in the original map which is in poor condition. The only way of dating the map is by a process of comparison. For example no railway track is drawn which puts the map at pre-1875; in fact shortly after this date Eccleshill Hall, which is featured, was demolished. The Bank Top Methodist Chapel is present, but I believe this is eighteenth century and so of no real help in dating this map. Most helpfully a large road is identified as the ‘New turnpike road’. I understand that this was surveyed by Joseph Smith, father of George Belk Smith, in the mid-1820s. If this is correct we have a date range of 1825-75. The most obvious feature present in the first OS map of the area (surveyed late 1840s) but missing from our map is the Stony Lane Sandstone Quarry. I have been unable to establish a date for the creation of this quarry but assuming it pre-dated the OS map by at least a couple of years it would suggest a date of about 1845 for the present map.