In days past, the Crabtree Brook, called a river on some old maps, ran down into Bagley Dyke eventually joining the Don at Brightside. The area was scantily populated by farmers, tanners and charcoal burners.

The ponds were not a natural feature, but landscaped in the garden of Crabtree Lodge, a gothic style mansion built in the first half of the nineteenth century by a Mr Rotherham, and used in heavy winters as an ice rink to entertain friends. Over time, the lodge was home to Charles Atkinson JP, the Mayor of Sheffield and industrial entrepreneur Edward Tozer (of the famous steelmakers Steel, Peech and Tozer) – himself a mayor and twice Master Cutler.

The Lodge was eventually demolished, with the site now being used for a care home. But the garden and ponds remain almost intact, and can be visualised as they were in their heyday.
Crabtree was originally part of Pitsmoor Common, which once stretched from the Toll Bar cottage down to Fir Vale. Taking a walk through Crabtree Ponds up by the brook to Crabtree Road brings you to Rose Cottage on your right. In the 1700s this belonged to the Nutt family, and its seclusion and ready supply of water made it ideal for their trade as skinners and tanners.

The estate of new houses was built on what was once a cricket field. Standing on the site was a chapel and a row of picturesque cottages, on a summer’s day a penny’s worth of strawberries could be bought served on a cabbage leaf. Alas the cottages were demolished at the start of World War I.

Amid the new houses on Crabtree Drive stands Crabtree Ivies. Older than the 1676 date on the gable end, it has been much extended over the centuries with each of its inhabitants impressing their mark on the building. In 1795 it belonged to Kenyon Parker, attorney and Master in Chancery.

1841 is marked above the porch with the initials ‘J.F.’ which refers to Joseph Frith, explorer, traveller and later eccentric and recluse. He died in 1886, and by his will he founded the Frith Trust, donating £5,200 to ‘needy citizens of good repute.’ His eccentricity can be measured by his building of a twenty-five foot high wall on the Quarry Fields at the edge of his land, to block out a row of new houses which he feared might intrude on his privacy. The final datestone is ‘M 1948’ – Dr McKenzie of Firth Park, who was the forerunner of the present owners.

Sheffield has many idyllic areas. Crabtree today is one of these and is well worthy of a visit.