The Enclosure Act of the early 19th century altered the appearance of the countryside around High Bradfield as the profusion of stones in the soil resulted in many small fields in the area. Around the same time many people in the Bradfield area were influenced by the Industrial Revolution and moved to nearby Sheffield to improve their standard of living. The Bradfield Parish workhouse was based in High Bradfield between 1759 and 1847; the building is still there today, standing across the road from the Old Horns pub on Towngate. The building was converted into private houses in the 1870s. Thousands of documents relating to the workhouse were found in a hidden cupboard in one of the houses in the 1950s; these are now in the Bradfield Parish Archives. On Jane Street is the Grade II listed building known as the Old Post Office, built from gritstone with a slate roof in 1835. It was originally an inn called "Heaven House" or "Heaven's Gate" and later "The Cross Daggers". Later it served as a register office, vestry and school and latterly as a post office; it is now a private dwelling divided into several flats.