Page:A Glossary of Words Used In the Neighbourhood of Sheffield - Addy - 1888.djvu/60

 made of stone, or at best of bronze, the clearing of land from forest trees, and even brushwood, must have presented almost insuperable obstacles. And as in the humblest stages of agricultural pastoral life a certain proportion of land must necessarily be free from wood, it may easily be understood that a tract of country which already fulfilled this requirement must have been a most desirable location for people in the earlier periods of civilization.'

So far as the earliest history of Sheffield and the surrounding district is concerned, this statement holds good. All the old settlements are on the tops of hills, or in elevated placed where there was no timber to be felled. At Crookes there may still be seen the shell of a place which at a very early period was occupied by a villata or village community. The tofts and crofts are there, and other evidences of the mode of life once led by the inhabitants of this district. The village is built on the two sides of a straggling or—to borrow a word from the dialect—a wiming street. At the north end of this street, and bounded by 'Tinker Lane,' otherwise 'Cocked Hat Lane,' on the north, is a field called 'The Ale Croft'—the former scene of church ales, bride ales, or other village merrymakings. A few yards from the west end of the Ale Croft, but on the other side of the lane, the urns previously mentioned were found. In the description previously given of the discovery of these urns it will be remembered that they were found 'near the Bole Hills.' On the very top of the hill at Whirlow is a field called 'The Cocked Hat,' and upon an eminence about a quarter of a mile distant is a 'Bole Hill,' at which place slag and other remains of smelting have been found. In each place the 'Bole Hill' and the 'Cocked Hat' are nearly the same distance apart. There is nothing in the 'Cocked Hat' field at Whirlow to indicate the presence of a barrow, but it is exactly the place where one would expect to find one; and I have not the least doubt theat in the case both of Whirlow and Crookes the words 'Cocked Hat' have reference to barrows which, at some