Church Street
This street is very old and was the main road from Penistone towards Spring Vale long before the parallel Shrewsbury Road was made navigable around 1913. On the top corner, a building for Penistone Grammar School had been on the 'Kirk Flatt' site even before being rebuilt in 1702. It is possible that the pre-1702 school was sited a bit closer to the current Market Street (a few yards further from the church) and possibly on the site of an even older ale-house. The later school closed in 1892 and was replaced above the current Netherfield PGS site, at 'Weirfield.' The first picture looks up the hill from about halfway down, with the churchyard wall to the left and the green doors of Don Press/Woods Printers to the right.
A Royal inquisition from 1604 showed that all of the land belonged (via Thomas Clarel) to the Grammar School. From Dransfield's History of Penistone: 'All of the Houses, Stables, Buildings, and Gardens, in the North end of the Towne betwixt St. Marie-lane and the Cockpit-lane, and beinge the gift of one Lord Clarel of Aldewarke ... (etc., a very long statement)'. Described as 'the absentee landlord of Penistone', Thomas Clarel drowned in the River Don on 1st May 1442.
After the old school buildings were demolished, a grand new building was built as a bank (mostly off the first picture) and formed the curve of the road into Church Street. The site had been sold to Sheffield Union Banking Co. Ltd. for the bank. This would later be taken over by the Midland Bank, which itself became HSBC Bank (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) and served Penistone for decades before its closure on 29th April 2016. HSBC also closed branches at Denby Dale, Holmfirth, Almondbury and many other places at the same time.
The part of the bank building occupied at the time of the picture by Dransfield solicitors is visible in the first picture. Dransfield's history stretched back to the nineteenth century when John Dransfield and later his son Jon Ness Dransfield were leading Penistone townspeople. JN Dransfield is famous for hi 'History of the Parish of Penistone' published in 1906. Dransfield's solicitors building changed hands and the corner part became Andrew Eleanor's newspapers and stationers shop, later 'Robinson's News' and, from 2007, 'J&B's Antiques and Collectables' thrived in the building and brought some much-needed variety to Penistone's shops. After a doubling of rent, the antiques shop closed in the autumn of 2017 to be replaced by 'The Vault' cafe and downstairs cocktail bar..
Still at the top of Church Street shown below, to the right of the former bank building is Cockpit Lane, a short lane which led to a cock-fighting pit (referred to above in 1604). They had different entertainment in the old days but we can presume that cock-fighting would have been a popular pastime at a time when local entertainment was limited. A plan for lane shows it leading to an 'Eighteen Foot Wide' access road to the rear of the printing works and a few post-war houses. A new building next to the printing works had been a carpenter's but is now used (2024) as a micro-brewery for the 'Penistone Tap' bar on Market Street.
Going down from Cockpit Lane is a row of houses which were built around the 1870s and were (or are) owned by the Penistone Grammar School Trust, which also owns the former JT's furniture shop on the end of Market Street (now Crinella cocktail bar). One of the houses is now a beer shop and it had been a vets before that. One well-known local character used to live on the row. The late Councillor George Punt had been a prominent member of Penistone Town Council and he taught Rural Studies at Penistone Grammar School. He later moved to Schole Hill Farm.
The next points of interest are the Arthouse Café and Hacket's florist and gift shop, if you could see them on the photo. The Arthouse Café had been started by Frances Barkworth in 2011 after her father Paul had converted a house for use as a cafe and it soon became very popular. On that row also used to be the Penistone Telephone Exchange and a red telephone box. There are many interesting stories from the ladies who used to work there in the 1984 Penistone Almanack supplement.
The green doors in the picture belong to the printing works, which still operates under both of its old names, 'The Don Press' and 'Wood's Printer' - take your pick. It is a niche business as it manufactures such as rosettes and prize cards for agricultural shows and has at least three Heidelberg printing presses and facilities for hot foil pressings. There are more modern ways to print out the cards but they can't really match the quality. The Heidelberg presses are really impressive in action: all reciprocating movements, rotating flywheels, rumbling motors and the hiss of compressed air. You have to shout over them to be heard. The business is quite a piece of Penistone history. They no longer use type-setting in the old style with individual letters wedged into rows and half-tone etched pictures on aluminium plates but the equipment to do all that is still there.
Just off the picture again, to the right, is the entrance to St John's Community Centre car park which leads us to the next picture, the former National School, with its pointy double-glazed windows. This is an old picture and now looks a lot different with the major rebuilding the front of the building now has a stone wall and fencing.
A plaque on the gable end (which is still there) shows that the National school had been built as a school for girls in 1822 and now owned by a trust. The stone reads: 'Female National School - Endowed by Mr. Joseph Camm of Beverley A.D. MDCCCXXII'. The Roman numerals add up like this - 1000(M) + 500(D) + 300(CCC) + 20(XX) + 2(II) = 1822. It had been occasionally used by local freemasons but not for much else and fell into decline and disrepair. It attracted a variety of pharmaceutically-minded youths who damaged the windows and roof. Even in broad daylight you might find a young lad bouncing a ball on the low roof to see the tiles break off. Idle hands at work.
In 2009, the National School was repaired and much extended to later become the home of 'Busy Bees' for pre-school children. It was a big and expensive project which transformed it into a modern building with good facilities and a proper outside play area. Barnsley council arranged for its 'Surestart' scheme to spend around £500,000 of public money this year to renovate the historic National School. Busy Bees is a well-funded national organisation which sets up nurseries for young children as commercial operations. Controversially, Busy Bees had previously planned to build on recreation land near the Bowling Club. But the Showground area is sacrosanct to Penistone. Very unusually, a public objection actually worked and Busy Bees had to find an alternative place, which is why it moved here.
The Community Centre is the current incarnation of the former St John's school, which started anew with a new building off the High Street. The centre is usually a busy place and meeting place for all manner of clubs, societies and the monthly PACT meetings with the Police. On Market Days (Thursdays), it hold the Country Market with locally produced fruit, vegetables, pies and much more. This started off as a Women's Institute sale but spread its wings to encompass a variety of local suppliers. During the Covid period, perhaps around 2020-2021, a one-way system was in use with customers paying for all goods on the way out.
The Community Centre is on two levels: the Main Hall with kitchen, Bar Room, Information Technology room (lots of mains sockets and a pull-down screen but no speakers or projector!) and a storeroom. This is accessed through a code-accessed door, which is to the right of the blue car shown above. The Lower Hall is accessed through a more obvious door, off-picture here. (Before the 2024 changes) it has a small kitchen, PTC offices, seminar room and the Archive group in the Neville Perry room. Between the two halls is a stairway, corridor, Caretaker's Office and toilets.
The local council's offices are home to the redoubtable Town Clerk and his secretaries. Penistone History and Archive group can also be found in the Lower Hall of the Community Centre on Market days. In 2024, a major renovation to the building with revised occupancy will come into play. The main reason for the work is to do with removing asbestos from the roof and a new central heating system. The Archive group will re-appear in rooms by the Lower Hall entrance. The last picture here continues with the view down the street, which will not have changed much for more than a century. Just the cars, really!
A Coincidence and a Little Puzzle
The houses on Church Street have changed little over more than a century. The last picture above looks down this very old street on an autumn evening, complete with fallen leaves from the churchyard. Just off the picture is a house with an unusual, castellated roof feature. It belonged to Zachariah W Tinker, who was a joiner and coffin-maker and had been involved in constructing houses at the top end of the street.
In a case of history repeating itself, the current occupant of Mr Tinker's old house is Mr Paul Barkworth, a carpenter who has also worked on one of the same houses higher up the street as Mr Tinker. While renovating No. 3a, Paul discovered an interesting secret. Pencilled on the reverse side of a floorboard were the names of Zechariah Tinker, Joseph Hodgson, Mary Stephens (which could be Mary and Stephen) and something which was not legible.
Now the puzzle. Paul has the building plans for No. 3a, titled: 'Plan of two houses and a shop to be erected in Penistone for ZW Tinker 1877'. Oddly enough, the marked floorboard had the date 'May 13 1865', but why was the floorboard dated before its plans had been drawn up? Paul had been renovating No. 3a for it to become the Arthouse Café, ready for his daughter Frances to operate (and very successfully) as its proprietor. The café opened in July 2011. Many thanks to Frances for passing this story on to me.
The bottom end of Church Street used to have a millinery shop but it is now an ordinary dwelling. This was where Church Street joins Shrewsbury Road, near the Fish and Chip shop and Green Kleen's (now closed), although in earlier times it was Church Street that was the main way through. Shrewsbury Road was not properly 'adopted' until around the time the Town Hall was built in 1914. It is likely that the oldest houses on Church Street are at the lower end.
