All around, except where the Don
opens a road to Doncaster, great hills girdle it in, some of which at their
summit spread out into heath-covered moorlands, where the blackcock used
lately to crow. Almost in sight of the columns of factory smoke, others of
the surrounding ridge are wood-crowned, and others saddlebacked and turfed;
so that a short walk transports you from the din of the workshop to the
solitude of "the eternal hills." We do not remember any manufacturing town
so fortunately placed in this respect as Sheffield. For an excellent and
truthful description of this scenery, we may turn to the poems of Ebenezer
Elliott, who painted from nature and knew how to paint in deep glowing
colours.
"Hallamshire, which is supposed by antiquarians to include the parish of
Sheffield, forms a district or liberty, the importance of which may be traced
back to even British times; but Sheffield makes its first appearance as a
town some time after the Conquest. In the Domesday Book the manor of
Sheffield appears as the land of Roger de Busk, the greater part held by him
of the Countess Judith, widow of Waltheof the Saxon. In the early part of
the reign of Henry I.
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