The Carbrook Hall

Carbrook Hall 

 

Carbrook was the home of the Blunt family as long ago as 1176. The hall was built in delightful surroundings, the clear waters of the Don on the left, with woodlands and rural features front and right.
Open ground extended at the rear (the main road, still called Attercliffe Common, being our only reminder of this) and there were very few buildings in the neighbourhood. In the distance could be seen the beautiful wooded slopes of Wincobank Hill. In the reign of Elizabeth I a Richard Fenton resided here, but in 1623 we find the hall in the possession of Thomas Bright. In 1637 the hall passed to Stephen and then to John Bright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 23 years of age, John Bright, who was the son of Stephen took over the estate, and is one of the many ghosts who walks here. John Bright was on the side of parliament and one of Cromwells most distinguished soldiers during the Civil War, which extended from 1643 to 1649, he was made a colonel in 1643 and he retired from the Army Service in 1650.

Charles II then made him a Baronet and he eventually died in September 1688. The Hall then passed to Katherine, the daughter of John Bright. When her son John Liddal became heir to the estate he assumed the name of Bright so the hall was once again the home of the Bright family.
Later the Hall passed by various marriages through the Thompson and Whetham families until, in the late 18th Century we find the building was owned by Lucy Sotheran. From her it came into the ownership of her brother, Admiral Frank Sotheran a gentleman who lived from 1776 to 1861. It was the Admiral who closed the Bright estate by putting it onto the open market and in 1819 it was bought by Thomas Booth & Company, who in turn sold it to George Bradford, who owned practically the whole of Attercliffe Common and a quantity of land towards Tinsley.

In 1855 George Bradford must have left the Hall for we find the owners were the River Don Company and the tenants the Carbrook Land Society. From that time onwards the Historic Hall deteriorated and became according to the records a “Common Beer House”. Today the landlord serves drinks to his customers in the Parlour where during the Civil War many vital conferences were held.

This parlour is now the showplace of the Hall, a fine room twenty-two feet long by eighteen feet wide beautifully panelled in oak. The ceiling of very old plaster -possibly Italian - displaying a typical Elizabethan pattern. Flowers are the dominant theme and particularly the emblem of the thistle. In this room (which still has the original door) the walls are two feet in thickness a sturdy reminder of olden times. The carving over the fireplace shows a nun who has fallen into disgrace. She has grown a tail because of her transgression, and is being condemned by the Church symbolised by the form of a Bishop who stands over her. The motto here is “Wisdom Trampling Upon Ignorance”. Around the fireplace are two fine rounded pillars, carved with shields and interwoven with flowers.
Upstairs lies the Black Oak Room, this room which is not open to the public, is oak panelled like the one downstairs, the carving on the stone fireplace represents a bird hunting a snake, and there are also one or two small heads carved after the Elizabethan style. A door leading off from here once gave way to a staircase leading down to the Oak Room and the cellars.
Carbrook Hall stands here today, as it has stood through many turbulent centuries the green fields in which it was once set have gone forever as have the remains of the Industrial Revolution, and now begins a New Era. 

 

 

The current Carbrook Hall was built in the latter half of the 15th century: this was probably a timber framed structure. The present building dates from Elizabethan or early Jacobean times. It was in the days of Queen Elizabeth I that Thomas Bright of Bradway, Lord of the Manor of Ecclesall, came to live at the old Hall. A later descendant, John Bright, was a distinguished soldier in Cromwell's army.

 

The Oak Room, as it is now called, is the chief glory of Carbrook - the finest example of a Jacobean interior for many miles. The dark oak panelling is topped by a plaster frieze of scrolls and medallions: the coffered plaster ceiling is decorated with a rih interlaced pattern and conventional flowers. The main interest of the room centres on the elaborately carved oak mantlepeice 1610-1620. In the middle of the overmantel stands a figure personifying Wisdom, his foot firmly planted on the prostrate and distorted form of ignorance. Around him are scrools bearing faint inscriptions :-

 

"Good understanding is to depart from evil."

"Be not as a horse or a mule, which have no understanding."

"Understanding reacheth Heaven"

"Understanding is a well-spring of life"

"Ignorance is a beast"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carbrook Hall is a historic house in Sheffield, England. Located in the Attercliffe district of the city, the original building was owned by the Blunt family from 1176. This was rebuilt in 1462, and was bought by Thomas Bright (Lord of the manor ofEcclesall) in the late 16th century. His descendant, John Bright, was an active Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, and the building was used as a Roundhead meeting place during the siege of Sheffield Castle. Most of the building was demolished in the 19th century, what survives is a Grade II listed stone wing that was added c1620. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghosts

Over the years many people that have lived in Carbrook Hall as resident Landlords or Landladys, and familys of whom along with regular visitors to the establishment, have confirmed sightings of ghosts. One of the ghosts is said to be an elderly little man that sits in the bar area, contently drinking a pint of ale, when approached or questioned he disappears. Childrens voices and their laughter can sometimes be heard in the early hours of the morning. Loud footsteps can be heard sometimes from the upstairs oak bedroom, walking along the corridoor towards the staircase, to then disappear as if no one was ever there. Glasses have been flung in a horizontal direction mysteriously from the top shelf of the bar towards staff at great speed. The pool room also seems to host a couple of ghosts of which can be heard walking around in circles, but when approached from the bar area, the footstep sounds seem to stop as if they hide from us. 

 

But please dont let the ghosts put you off visiting, come and explore and do some ghost hunting with us!