The base of the chimney has a breadth of twelve feet six inches on one side, and ten feet six inches on the other. It is built of stone, and in the chamber above the house-place it begins to taper off, so that its sides might be compared to the “steps” on the Great Pyramid. Big central chimneys like this are the first rude attempts to get rid of the open hearth, from which the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or by a louver. It is said that “chimneys were not used in the farmhouses of Cheshire till within forty years of the publication of King’s _Vale Royal_ (1636); the fire was in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under the same roof.”[66] [66] Whitaker’s _Craven_, 1812, p. 334. The rooms of the house are about eight feet high on the ground floor, and seven feet on the upper floor, and the principals supporting the roof in the garret are a good deal like the crutches which have just been described. There is no panelling in the house, and no cellar. In front of the building is an old-fashioned garden. In 1545 Robert Glossop, of Offerton, was fined for trespassing on Abney Common.[67] In 1465 John Glossop, of Wodsetys, in Norton (Norton Woodseats, near Sheffield), leased to Henry Foliaumbe a messuage in Offerton called Le Storthe for twelve years.[68] It would not be difficult to make out a considerable history of the Glossop family and their relations from the Lichfield wills and the other usual sources of information. [67] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxiii., p. 89. [68] Jeayes, _Derbyshire Charters_. We must not be in too great a hurry to conclude that Offerton means upper farm, as Over Haddon means Upper Haddon. Overton, in Ashover, means upper farm, but Mr. Jeayes has shown that in the thirteenth century Offerton, in Hathersage, occurs once as Hofnertoun, and that a man called Eustace de Hofnerton lived there.[69] Other early forms of the name are Offirtun and Offreton; in _Domesday_ it appears as Offertune, a berewick of Hope. Mr. Searle has told us that _Offerd_ is found in Old English charters and in _Domesday_ as a form of the man’s name _Osfrith_,[70] and, if we could put aside Hofnertoun as a scribe’s error, this is probably the first element of the word. In the thirteenth century we have Over Offerton and Nether Offerton, otherwise _Kauereshegge_.[71] Was Nether Offerton ever so called? Possibly the scribe should have written _Hauereshegge_, a form of Hathersage, as old documents show. [69] Jeayes, _Derbyshire Charters_. [70] _Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum_, Cambridge, 1897. [71] Jeayes, _op. cit._