A book about the history of the public houses of Stocksbridge and district by Claire Pearson

Published on the 3rd October 2020. 

Available direct from Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions.  327 pages.

 

Generations of locals and a succession of travellers have spent their leisure hours in public houses, and they were not merely social hubs where people met to drink and talk.  They played host to coroners’ courts, manorial courts, Friendly Societies, political hustings, auctions of property and livestock, the payment of rents, the hiring of staff, and they were where people met to conduct business, whether honest or dishonest.  Their yards stabled the stagecoach horses and were used by carriers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and travelling salesmen.  They provided a convenient base for all kinds of itinerant traders, from dentists, quack doctors, and portrait painters to travelling shows, menageries, and waxworks.  Not forgetting the odd travelling bear.

 

This book contains stories from local public houses past and present from their early days until the eve of World War Two.  There are tales from the pubs in and around the South Yorkshire town of Stocksbridge and the nearby villages of Bolsterstone, Deepcar, Green Moor, Hunshelf and Wigtwizzle (modern pubs and Working Men’s Clubs are not included.)  

 

The author is an amateur historian and keen genealogist with over forty years’ experience of researching the local area and a childhood spent touring the back-street pubs of Joshua Tetley & Co., thanks to her father, an electrician subcontracted to the brewery.  Many of these pubs are now nothing but memories but some of their stories are told here so that those memories live on.  

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Get your copy now, by ordering direct from Amazon HERE. 

The book is available as a paperback or Kindle e-book.  Amazon has a facility to download a free sample or read the first chapter online.  Locally, copies are available from the author (contact claire2pearson@hotmail.com) or from Samuel’s Kitchen, near Fox Valley.  

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It was not possible to include lots of photographs in the book because of print limitations, and so I have added all those I have collected so far to this website.  They can be found HERE.

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If anyone is interested, there is a very interesting WEA course run by Brian Holmshaw on the Social History of Sheffield's pubs.  It usually runs twice a year, but Brian also runs a variety of other local history courses.  For details of local courses, check the WEA website and enter your postcode.