Thundercliffe Grange - A History

Thundercliffe Grange is situated in the extreme west of Kimberworth where the old manor abuts part of Sheffield. A house or grange has existed close to the site of the present house since the Middle Ages. The Cistercian monks of Kirkstead Abbey in Lincolnshire which had forges and other property in Ecclesfield and Rotherham, gifted to them by de Busli and de Lovetot, built a residence (just outside the boundary of the Manor of Kimberworth) together with fish ponds, stables and dovecot for the use of the granger or farm manager of the lands they leased for the exploitation and smelting of iron ore.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 Thundercliffe Grange was bought by Thomas Rokeby He was descended from the Rokeby's of Ackworth in the North Riding. His only daughter and heir married Henry Wombwell, son of Hugh, who was the second son of Thomas Wombwell of Wombwell. His descendant Thomas Wombwell rebuilt the old grange, and in the hall were his arms impaling those of Arthington and the intiials T.W.A.W. 1575.

Various families lived there until it was purchased by the Earl of Effingham in 1771. The old grange was demolished and the new Thundercliffe Grange was built on a slightly different site within the Rotherham boundary. The present Thundercliffe Grange is an 18th Century house which was owned by the Earl of Effingham. It was built by John Platt between 1776-1785 to replace the earlier property. It is set in 22 acres of grounds on a hillside in the valley of the Blackburn Brook.

These days the M1 runs very close to the property but it is likely that it got its name in earlier centuries from the noise of the wind howling along the valley and not the roar of traffic. Alternatively since iron was mined and smelted around here from Medieval times that might be another source for the name Thundercliffe. John Speed's map of 1610 calls the area Thornerclyff. More possibilities also include the meaning of 'the under cliff' or a derivation from the Latin 'tundere' to beat repeatedly. The place also seems to have been called Cindercliffe, Senecliffe and Senocliffe.

The house, however, is remarkable in another way. The Grange was a private mental home for ladies about 1900 and was later used as a residential home for mentally handicapped children up to the end of the 1970s. When it became redundant as a home it was put on the market for £65,000 - a bargain in 1980 even bearing in mind the amount of work that needed to be done. It was empty for two years before being purchased by what I think of as a workers co-operative, a group of friends who got together. The Grange was altered to provide twelve self-contained apartments with each leaseholder paying monthly maintenance costs towards the upkeep of the building in general. The property now is owned and run as a co-housing project. The freehold is owned by the Thundercliffe Grange Company Ltd. and all the leaseholders are directors of the company.

Sources:

www.rotherhamunofficial.co.uk
www.rotherhamweb.co.uk

Brown Book:6 - Getting a little worried...

The next tract in the Brown Book appears to be written in a hurry.   It is certainly more "scrappy" than some of the other tracts and there are spelling mistakes (or encrypting mistakes) which I've left in the decipher below.   It also has a slightly (more) confused and breathless quality than some of the others: 

vxvx 
Can you see it?   It is possible that no such knowledge [c]omes to you but in time this will change.   There will be illvmination.   Although the song of the birds pleases us there will be a call to understanding and that which will be will come forth.   Only by falling deep within ourselves will that [k]nowledge be revealed.   What must we do to stop the joining?   We can only talk, collaborate, state our needs.   By sitting toggther we tackle the issue.   But that is not all.   Together, the world turns, apart it is quieted.   The contemplation of such stillness should bring us pause.   Not for us the simple act of observatipn, instead we surge forwards carrying all before us.   But is all this action necessary?   We must judge necessitx, focus on the now and see where the movement needs.   Who are we to state an imperative? We stand and with a defimitive impulse stride towards a specific purpose.   This is what you will receive.   A complex situation.   If payment is made, this is what you will receive.   After the reductions come the conclusion.   But what is the number, how can we say for certain?   And is this ever needed? 

It's difficult to know where to start on this one.   It repeats the theme from previous tracts of seeking "illumination" but the second half of the tract is very obscure.   It seems to be advocating both action and passiveness, deeds and contemplation.   Also the statements about making payments and "what is the number" and whether the number is "needed" make little sense out of overall context. 

I'm hoping that this tract is a bit of an aberration.   As I mentioned it looks more like frenzied scribbling that the measured approach shown in the other tracts, almost as if the author was desperate to get it written down.   Although how you can write quickly in a cipher is difficult to comprehend.   The other alternative is that this progression shows some kind of deterioration in the mind of the author. I hope that this is not the case.

Up in a tree

I went back to the place where I found the journals yesterday.   It was one of those sunny, windy mornings that promised a fine day.   (It didn’t end up that way, it just got more and more cloudy until it started to rain in early evening.   However this didn’t affect my morning).   Anyway, I’m not sure why, on a whim, I decided to go back.   I suppose over the last couple of weeks I’ve been so obsessed with translating the journals that I haven’t really had time to investigate where they came from, what they might be doing in the tree.

The tree was still there but the area was much more green and overgrown, it now being summer rather than autumn.   Looking at the place where I found the box, it was really difficult to see, almost invisible because of all the foliage.   I wonder whether this gives a clue as to when the box was hidden.   In the autumn it was relatively easy for me to notice the box, even from the road.   In the summer, even close up to the tree, it would have been more or less impossible to see it.   Could it be that whoever had hidden it did so in the summer?

And it seemed like that it must have been a very spur of the moment decision to hide the box in the tree.   If you had time, you would bury the box or conceal it in the attic or under the floorboards or choose any number of secure locations.   But to put it in a tree?   Could the author (or owner) have been on the run?   The box itself was in pretty poor condition, so it could have been in the tree for a while, years even.    Most people passing the spot would be whizzing past in a car or head down on their racing bike and probably wouldn’t notice anything.  Fortunately for us, the box served its purpose and the journals were fairly well preserved however long they had been there.

The location seems to point up even more the significance of the journals or at least give us some clue as to the author or owner.   It they weren’t valuable why not throw them away?   If they were valuable, why hide them in a tree?   I have this picture of someone running away, being pursued, desperate that his or her pursuers do not get their hands on the journals.  On an impulse they thrust the box into the tree and then ran on, drawing their pursuers away from the box.   Perhaps they were captured, perhaps not, but the journals were preserved.

This is probably just me being fanciful and there is a very prosaic explanation for all of this.   I just like to think that there is something more significant about the place where the journals were found.

BROWN BOOK:5

 vxvx

In the dead times it will be different.   As it was the darkness was palpable.   A voice rang out painting the stars with a colour out of all understanding.   He placed it carefully, making sure it was safe, then spelled the words that opened the door.   He contemplated, making a choice for the future, something that would illuminate the way, something that would carry him through those dead times.   It was as if a door had opened into a future land.   He looked on the land and it seemed barren.   But then in the far distance he saw something, a speck, a fragment.   And it seemed to move, to grow bigger, and he saw that it was moving towards him as he sat motionless, fixed.

A house came towards him and it was dark.   Its door was closed and barred, its windows shuttered.   He could not see what was within.   He heard the sounds, glimpsed the movement yet all was obscured.   How do we read this?   Nine times it can to him and still he did not see.   How will it come to us?   Will we see?  The house may be dark in the dead times, our movement fixed.

The imagery here seems very much more specific.   It is dark.   There is a sound, a voice. The person who is the subject of this tract puts something down and then says the password or casts a spell to open a door.   He sees something coming towards him.   It turns out to be a house(!).   It is closed up, inaccessible.   It comes towards him nine times but still he can’t work out how to get inside.      This is important to us, because we need to work out how to get inside the house at some point.    And all this is bookended by the reference to the “dead times”, where things are different.   Could this simply be the night, where our author is left alone to compose his or her tracts?

As with some of the other tracts, this feels like either the seeking of some kind of spiritual enlightenment, an “opening of the way”, or the thoughts of someone seeking actual or mental escape or release.  

The image of the house, barred and shuttered is very strong, again speaking of constraint or imprisonment, or perhaps of a secret locked away.   I can’t help thinking, when reading this tract, of Thundercliffe Grange itself, moving towards me across a barren land.

 Thundercliffe Grange, an eighteenth century mansion house with service wings and stable block, set in 22 acres of mixed park land and woodland on the Sheffield/Rotherham border in South Yorkshire

Writing in tongues

In trying to tease out a possible meaning from these tracts I think we must be aware that there might be other explanations that don’t include any meaning.   There are well documented examples of glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”), automatic writing and stream of consciousness writing which could lead to the kind of language and construction contained in the tracts.   It has been suggested that this kind of writing is linked to mental illness but there is no good scientific evidence to support this.

However the other overriding feature of the tracts is the structure.   There is the 200 word consistency (so far) and the vxvx tract header.   This appears to either point to some obsessive tendency or that the fact of this structure is meant to convey some message.   Or actually both.   There also appear to be, as I’ve mentioned before, overarching themes in the tracts.   This could point to obsession or a gradual move towards clarity.

This has been a hard post to write because none of the possible explanations I’ve given are mutually exclusive.   All or none of them could be true.   Only time will tell if this whole exercise is some kind of wild goose chase.   There, I’ve managed to depress myself!

Brown Book:4

Moving on to Brown Book:4.   We now have a passage that seems much more connected to place.   The landscape described appears to match with the landscape around the area where the journals were found.   We are in an area scoured by mining and on the edge of the Peak District.   The author would have seen any number "low moorland pools" and "blasted and barren scraps of earth".   So here goes - again a simple alphabetic substitution cipher, starting at R:

vxvx
It gathered first in the dark places.   In the low moorland pools that lie deep and still, far from our dwelling places, fathomless depths, silent and beyond thought.   Those blasted and barren scraps of the earth, changed by time yet changeless.   Looking up the sky brooded, making the question significant.   Can you feel the change in the earth?   Though the mountain still touches the heavens the very soil writhes with the coming turmoil.   All is still yet it speaks to the skies.   A brooding presence, hidden yet always with us.   And it will rise up and when the moon grows dim and the stars shatter and the wolf howls.   It is something that has always been known yet comes new to every generation and calls to us across time.   And everything is out of joint, a keening wasteland that brings only restless hordes to cover the plains.   They move endlessly forwards, closer each day until the ground beneath our feet shakes.   This is how it was and how it will be.  Will it be suffering or glory?   It is never clear.   I must make it clear, that is my calling.   Others must know in order to fulfil the covenant.

This, to me, has two main themes.   We have the "brooding presence" that will "rise up".   And what is interesting is that the author doesn't seem to want to encourage or discourage this happening.   He or she feels the need to explain this - to "make it clear".   Not only that, but to make it clear to others, who need to know to "fulfil the covenant".

This is an interesting change in tone from the other tracts.   In the previous writings we have seen a very internalised, almost philosophical, tone, talking of seeking a path or escaping from some kind of captivity.    Here in this passage the author is talking about the need to communicate some truth externally.   This is the first indication that the tracts were meant to be read by others, rather than being simply the author's own musings.   Or at least that the author intended, at the end of whatever philosophical process he or she was going through, to reveal the discovery to the wider world.    The question remains - are these journals the way the author intended to communicate this discovery?   Or did something happen to prevent the revelation?

Thoughts and themes (so far...)

The overarching theme of these tracts seems to be that of solving some kind of puzzle.   The author is clearly groping for some solution, some “path”, through to a resolution.   You almost feel as if the author is in some way trapped and is trying to discover a way out of his or her situation.    It makes me wonder whether this feeling of entrapment is merely mental or whether it might be actually physical in nature.   In later tracts we start to have images of windows and rooms and trees which physically constrain, block the sight and offer glimpses of possibilities. 

Could this person have been physically constrained and is trying to actually escape or are these tracts a description of the search for a philosophical “enlightenment”?   It is clear that there are flashes of clarity where the author “sees” whatever they are looking for or it is “clear” which direction that they should take. The thing that makes me more persuaded of some kind of physical constraint is the fact that the tracts are enciphered (albeit in a very simple way), perhaps to hide their contents from someone else and that they are written in very different notebooks – almost as if the author was constrained by whatever writing material he or she could get hold of.   As a converse, the philosophical or mental constraint is indicated for me by the apparent requirement to write 200 words, no more, no less and start each tract with the “signature” vxvx.  

I don’t know if I’m overanalysing all this.   The more I work through the tracts, the more I feel that I’m getting some insight into the personality of the author and the condition in which he or she finds themselves.   Obviously all this is based on my perceptions only, so if any of you have views, I’d be interested to hear them.