It is one of Sheffield’s oldest streets and contains some of our most significant buildings, including the former premises of the Sheffield Banking Company, now reborn as the Curzon Cinema (middle right), the old offices of the Alliance Insurance Company (centre) and the 1960s-built Cutler’s Hotel (left, originally the Sheffield Club).
The greatest mystery with George Street is the “dog’s hind leg” half-way along, a cause of traffic congestion in Victorian and Edwardian times, as it was a thoroughfare between High Street and Norfolk Street.
While many roads were widened, George Street was mercifully spared, despite our ancestors wanting the road to be straightened. This would have necessitated wholesale demolition of buildings.
The street’s historic layout was secured when the offices of the Alliance Insurance Company were built in 1913-1914, replacing the old Sheffield Fire Insurance Company building where the town fire engine was once housed.
It is now the NSPCC, Sheffield Service Centre.
sheffielder.net 