Curiosity led me to look in an old book about the Norton area, ‘Chantrey Land’, Harold Armitage, (1910), to read a little about the area we walked through. Hazelbarrow Hall was pulled down in 1810, but we could still see part of the walls behind the alpacas. Records date back to the middle ages.
The name ‘Lumb’ apparently means a deep cleft or ravine which makes sense as we walked along the top of one. The open space of ‘Dowie’ or ‘Dowell’ Lumb obviously refers to the deep valley to the east.
Over the hill in Norton Woodseats was ‘Fawcetts Lumb’, and ‘Hemsworth Lumb’. Near Holmesfield, ‘Black Car Lumb’ and ‘Sherwood Lumb’, there was a also an old Rotherham rhyme which began, ‘ Down in yon lumb we have a mill -----’ sadly (perhaps) the rest of the rhyme is not quoted.
There we are then, more to add our sum total of fairly useless knowledge! Don’t ask about lumbago.
Mike H.
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