Dale View was a large property on Sitch Lane, Oker. The house was always known as Dale View and had been built around the core of a small farm^[1]. It was built by Captain Charles Blyth Ward some time after the First World War^[1]. Captain Ward registered other property from this address in 1925^[2]; the occupation he gave at the time was "Gentleman".

Charles Blyth Ward was born in Sheffield in 1875, the son of Septimus Henry and Emma Ward^[3]. He was educated at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey^[3]. His father founded Sheaf Brewery (S. H. Ward & Co. Ltd.) which was on Ecclesall Road, Sheffield and they produced Ward's beer. Charles became a Director of the firm^[3]. Like many others, he joined the Territorial Force Reserve before the First World War and in 1910 the London Gazette announced his Captaincy of the 3rd West Riding Brigade, backdated to 18th February, 1905^[2].

When he was living at Dale View, Charles also owned land at Farley and around Flash Dam^[1]. In the mid-1920's he "employed Twyfords to build Two Dales Cafe for three of his wife's spinster sisters"^[4], the Misses Duke. In 1899 he had married Mary Kate Thompson, who was born in Australia, but they divorced in 1917^[5] and he remarried.

He seems to have been a Company Director of various firms including Atkinson Brothers Ltd. of Sheffield^[2]. Charles left Dale View by 1940. The house became a home for evacuees during the Second World War and then a bible college/holiday retreat^[1], which is what it was when the above photograph was taken. The building was demolished about the mid-1950s because subsidence had made it structurally unsound. A bungalow was later built on the site of the tennis courts.