‘Nutters’ faced prosecution in a Sheffield suburb – and this is why
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The Sheffield City Archives on Shoreham Street are closed to the public to help enforce social distancing measures – however, the building’s staff have been taking part in an initiative called #ArchiveZ, which challenges institutions to post on Twitter about a different topic for each letter of the alphabet.
For the letter B, curators have picked an item linked to Beauchief where, in August 1809, tough measures were needed to guard against damage to fences caused by ‘nutters’ in the woods.
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Hide AdThe term refers to people who go out picking nuts from trees; it appears the area - part of Derbyshire at the time rather than South Yorkshire - was plagued by people clumsily gathering the harvest without permission in the early 1800s.
A notice contained in the Beauchief Muniments – a collection of historic documents and title deeds – says: “The woods and wood-fences in the lordship of Beauchief have for several years suffered great damage about this season of the year, from a set of idle people who style themselves ‘nutters’.
“This is to give notice that if any person or persons are caught nutting, or pretending to do so in the above mentioned woods or premises, they will be prosecuted as the law directs.”
Last month city archivists took part in another Twitter challenge named #Archive30.
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Hide AdOne of April’s best finds was a story from The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star – as The Star was known from 1898 to 1937 – which told the story of a joint of beef that, in February 1906, had hung in a butcher’s shop on Sheffield’s Fitzalan Market for 70 years.
The ‘septuagenarian rump steak’, the writer said, was held aloft on a specially allotted hook and had become something of a tourist attraction. Fitzalan Market Hall closed in 1930 – and the beef's whereabouts today are unknown.
Meanwhile, inspired by children’s drawings during the Covid-19 pandemic, earlier this month archivists hunted down a picture taken by The Star on March 14, 1994, when a rainbow shone over Sheffield for a record-breaking six hours.
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