Shireoaks in 1900
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The following extract from the Leeds Mercury describes Shireoaks as it was in 1900.
At Shireoaks I have completed the 3961/2th mile of my Itinerary; and from this point I must needs turn northward. Shireoaks is said to be a Nottinghamshire place, though Yorkshire has undoubtedly a share in it. About two miles from the church was a celebrated old oak tree which threw its branches over three counties - Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire - so that we and our Broad Acres could lay claim to a third part of the tree. Its position was mid-way between Thorpe Salvin in Yorkshire and Whitwell in Derbyshire, a tongue of Nottinghamshire licking the ground at that spot. Yet its trunk was in no particular parish. The Shire-oak may therefore be regarded as an outpost of the Sherwood Forest and Dukeries Oaks, which for long have ranked among the finest trees in the country. At one time it may have had a reputation similar to the Shambles, Greenwell, Raysdale, Seven Sisters, Cowthorpe, Major, or King's Oak. And the Shire-oak may have been flourishing there before the counties were staked or apportioned out. In default of a stream, a fence, or a wood, it stood out isolated as a suitable landmark, and answered every purpose for a boundary mark.
Shireoaks, like Sevenoaks, Nine Elms, and Barkston Ash, makes an interesting adjectival component of a placename; and at Headingley there is the Skyrack, or Shire-oak, which, like the ash at Barkston, gave its name to a very ancient division known as a wapentake.
Shireoaks railway station and the inn are a wedded pair: a happy arrangement of matters for the collier who travels to and fro daily, chiefly between Worksop and here. The landlord supposes his sign - the sign of the oak - to be a work of art; at any rate, I have no doubt that it gives an excellent idea of what the famous old tree was like. Unhappily it decayed, and I think there are persons living who saw it removed, and a new tree planted in its place. A goodly form has the old veteran as pictured on the sign, which is now the worse for wear; but surely there was no excuse for printing the names of the three shires in bold red capitals on its roots.
Worsop town is three miles away, the next station to Shireoaks on the Great Central Railway. I am not well up in the biography of Charles Peace, nor have I any inclination to renew my aquaintance with it; but that notorious personification of dis-peace once leaped from a train at Shireoaks while he was being conveyed under custody to Sheffield. In all probability he dreaded the idea of passing through his native parish of Darnall, the third station from here, where he began his innocent little life under a mother's anxious care. The Shireoaks folk seem proud to relate to this incident.
The original village of Shireoaks was very small, with a few red farms clustering round a paltry little church which is now used as a schoolhouse. The finding of coal and the acquirement of facilities for working it opened out the prospect of a prosperous career for the village.
To-day it is noted for its colliery, and its church. The church is ornamental, well built, and spacious, looking as though it had been imported from a fashionable watering-place or suburb. Certainly there is nothing to match it here, for the colliery settlement consists chiefly of one painfully long row of red brick dwellings, which claim to be superior, I daresay, to thatched cottages. The tourist could not possibly "take to" them: but they have charms for colliers. On the whole, they do look clean, and some of them have flower-pots and bird cages in their windows.
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