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For several years, I've completed a Writing Challenge with many people all over the globe. We write something inspired by prompts for 21 days, plus an introduction. This year, the prompts are about place, and I've chosen the River Porter in Sheffield.  These posts touch upon the river's history but they're also about what it means to me.  I'm not following the river in any order except that the first 10 posts are about the Porter Valley and the second 10 posts are about the Porter in the city.  I hope readers will participate and I have a couple of challenges; see the paragraphs in bold towards the end.

For such a short river, the Porter holds many surprises and perhaps the most remarkable is today’s topic.  But before we get onto that, let’s do a bit of revision.

Back in the 18^th century and through much of the 19^th, water power was the only game in town.  Sheffield is blessed with 5 rivers and so had easy access to power that other cities lacked.  The Porter had 20 dams along its length. 

If we take Hunters Bar as a point of transition, upstream from there were 8 dams and 6 of them still exist today.  That leaves 12 dams downstream.  Eleven of these are long gone.  They’ve been filled in and built over, perhaps several times.  Sometimes all that remains is a name.  Two dams, the Upper and Lower Lescar wheels, are the first after Hunters Bar, beneath what is now Sharrow Vale Road.  They gave their name to the Lescar Public House.  Others have streets named after them, eg Stalker Way and Sylvester Street. 

The next dam along from Lower Lescar is the one that still exists.  Notably, it has a working wheel.  This is not unique to the Porter, of course, Shepherd Wheel preserves a working cutlery grinding workshop.  It is a museum.

However, this dam is remarkable because it is a working wheel.  It's a private business, and while some of the business is powered by electricity, it's sometimes powered by water.  Its origins go back to the 16^th century, although the Wilson family took over in the 18^th century. 

And so we have the Sharrow Snuff Mill.  Wilson’s snuff is still sold.  I’ve no idea who buys it.  For the uninitiated, snuff is ground tobacco, presumably mixed with other spices and to be inhaled.  The first Wilson used Thomas Boulsover’s silver plating to make snuff boxes and then decided to make the contents too.

That the business survives to the present is remarkable.  And it seems they did particularly well during the 19^th century.  The owner was one of the businessmen instrumental in the foundation of the General Cemetery and also, across the valley, the Botanical Gardens.

The dam works like most of the others with head and tail goyts from and to the Porter.  The river is on the far side of the buildings in the photo. 

The odd thing is that I’ve been inside the snuff mill.  This was back sometime around 1970.  E, a school friend, was an artist and got permission to draw inside the building.  I can’t remember what he was drawing but we spent most of the time in the roof space or attic of one of the buildings.  He explained that I was interested in beams.  I doubt they believed him but they let me in. 

It’s very frustrating.  I don’t remember anything apart from being bored.  I’m sure if I’d seen the grinding, I'd remember.  But one thing I do remember is the smell, it was redolent of snuff, highly perfumed and spicy.  Imagine a highly spiced cake, such as parkin. 

How might posts of this type be used for marketing?  Think about how you might use this post or a post like it to promote your business.  I add a few thoughts after each post, like this:

This is a companion post to the last.  Wilson's sponsored the General Cemetery and the Botanical Gardens, along with a few other local businesses.  This commitment to enhancing the locality where a business is based was common then and not so common now.  Perhaps the main reason is most businesses are no longer owned by local people.  That's true of larger businesses.  Smaller businesses with local ownership may still aspire to contribute locally but ,amy perhaps lack the resources.

It is perhaps worth asking how businesses contribute, even where their contribution is not deliberate.  And perhaps it's also worth asking how businesses can still contribute.

My other challenge is for Sheffielders.  Do you have anything to share about the Porter?  Your experiences along it, bits and pieces of history you've uncovered, folklore you've heard?  If you remember something, please share it in the comments.  (Or maybe you are more familiar with other rivers in Sheffield, you could share those too.)  Let's see what we can find out over the coming weeks.

This is the fourteenth of 21 stories about the Porter.  The last story was: Ain't it Grand to be Bloomin' Well Dead!  The next is: Cats and Dogs.

The snuff mill is privately owned and rarely, if ever, opens to the public.  The water in front of the buildings is the dam and the river flows behind the buildings.