The proposals do not result in any change to the scale of the existing building, as no extensions or demolitions to the building are required.Photograph: Sheffield Star.
I recall visiting a sunbed salon at Leopold Chambers in the 1980s and climbing the huge Victorian staircase. I couldn’t help thinking that the old building was past its best. That was 37 years ago, and a lot has changed. The curved four storey building on the corner of Leopold Street and Church Street is home to a cafe, letting agent and tanning and beauty salon at ground floor level, with student accommodation occupying the floors above.
We looked at Leopold Chambers several weeks ago, built in 1893-1894 as new offices for Webster and Styring, an established firm of solicitors set up by George Edward Webster and Dr Robert Styring.
It was designed by Andrew Francis Watson (1856-1932), designer of many well-known buildings in Sheffield, including the Norfolk Market Hall, the old Fitzwilliam Market, Westminster Bank, High Street, showrooms for Mappin and Webb, and the offices of Messrs Vickers and William Jessops on Brightside Lane.
There are now plans by Ashgate Property Developments to convert the first, second and third floors into two studios, three one-bed and three two-bed apartments.
The plans involve reconfiguring the current units with no external works to the ornate Grade II listed facade and the ground floor retail units are unaffected.
“The building was constructed during the Victorian period and has seen various internal and external alterations and modifications over the years to the present day.
“The building has undergone extensive refurbishment and remodelling since its construction and little or no original features can be found other than the staircase which will remain.”
The former Endcliffe Sunday School on Ecclesall Road. Photograph: Axis Architecture.
Axis Architecture, on behalf of developers, has submitted a planning application to convert the former Endcliffe Sunday School, next to the old Endcliffe Methodist Church, on Ecclesall Road, into apartments and townhouses.
It was originally built at a cost of £8,000 as the Sunday School Hall. It was designed by John Charles Amory Teather, who placed copies of religious and local newspapers, a circuit plan, and a programme of the day’s proceedings in a cavity, when the foundation stone was laid on 6 October 1927.
In later years it was sold to the University of Sheffield and, in 1985, became the Traditional Heritage Museum. The museum closed in 2011 and the building was last used by the university in 2016, but remains vacant.
The building, on the market for six years, is in a state of disrepair and is currently unusable in its current physical state.
The proposed development of 605 Ecclesall Road will involve the partial demolition at the rear of the former Sunday School building – this is the area internally previously used as a stage, with the rear wall in its new position, re-built utilising salvaged stonework. That part of the site, along with the existing walled car-parking area, will then be given over to the construction of four terrace townhouse dwellings, facing Neil Road with gardens at first floor level and additional roof gardens.
“The Ecclesall Road frontage would be preserved, with new extensions set back to minimise their impact. The church building is considerably taller than the existing Sunday School building and it will be possible to extend the building upwards by at least two storeys without detracting from the setting of the local landmark building.
“Most of the existing building will be retained – the roofs are the only major elements which would be replaced, to allow for upward extension. The later, brick built elements at the rear would also be removed.”
There is a passageway between the church and Sunday School leading from Ecclesall Road to Neill Road which would remain open for members of the public.
The empty Sunday School building. Photograph: Axis Architecture.
The CN-Tower from Norfolk Street. Image: Grantside.
A developer has responded after one of its project on the corner of Charles Street and Norfolk Street attracted 127 objections.
Grantside applied for planning permission to Sheffield City Council for a 10-storey office block, called C-N Tower, to replace two 1960s buildings.
Residents complained it would block natural light, destroy privacy and damage businesses, and Historic England is concerned about the height of the tower and its effect on existing heritage buildings.
Grantside chief executive Steve Davis said: “According to Sheffield City Council there is a ‘chronic shortage’ of high-quality, Grade ‘A’ office space in the city centre. This is hugely detrimental to Sheffield’s future economic growth both in the short term and the long-term, as potential occupiers may be forced to look elsewhere.“
One of the buildings that will be demolished at the corner of Charles Street and Norfolk Street. Photograph: Sheffield Star.
The area around Norfolk Street and Pinstone Street was drastically redesigned in the late 1800s, widening and realigning Pinstone Street which involved the demolition of many buildings including some on this site.
The first building to be built on the site within the new road layout was the Three Horseshoes Hotel Public House in the 1890s. In the early 1900s buildings were built either side of the pub including the existing building St. Paul’s Chambers which originally housed the New Central Hall, cited as one of Sheffield’s first picture houses. This building also took up a section of the proposed site and became the Tivoli Cinema in 1914.
On 12th December 1940 Sheffield City Centre suffered extreme bomb damage during an intensive air raid. This included a direct strike outside the site where the Three Horseshoes Hotel and partof the Tivoli Cinema were gutted by the blast and subsequent fires.
The cinema never reopened but the Central Hall entrance signage can still be seen on the building today.
The site was eventually cleared of rubble and sat as an empty plot, used for parking during the 1950s. In the 1960s the current buildings on site were constructed and provided new offices above ground floor retail space. Over the following decades the buildings were occupied by many differing uses including BBC Radio Sheffield and a branch of The Post Office.
The C-N Tower is shown as an artist impression behind St Paul’s Building and the Prudential Assurance Building. Photograph: Grantside.
“To the memory of the officers and men of the 12th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment (Sheffield City Battalion) who fell before Serre 1916.” Photograph: Google.
There are many war memorials and plaques located around Sheffield, including the City War Memorial in Barker’s Pool. All of these are cared for by Sheffield City Council, but did you know that it also maintains the Sheffield Battalion Memorial in Serre-lès-Puisieux, a village in northern France.
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916 men of the 12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment (“the Sheffield Pals”) were entrenched ready to launch an attack on the German position in the fortified hilltop hamlet of Serre. The troops met with devastating machine gun fire and by the end of the day, the Battalion reported 248 killed, 246 wounded and 18 missing.
This tiny village has been indelibly stamped on the pages of Sheffield history – stamped with the blood of city sons, for in a fruitless endeavour to take Serre, the Sheffield City Battalion suffered enormous losses.
In October 1920, the Lord Mayor of Sheffield received the following correspondence from the Mayor of Puisieux:
“I am happy to send you the resolution by which the Municipal Council of Puisieux has decided unanimously to offer to the City of Sheffield the ground necessary for the erection of a monument. This monument will perpetuate among the population of Puisieux a souvenir of your dear lost ones. Believe me sincerely, that even without this monument they will not be forgotten.”
After World War One, the area around Puisieux was one of the saddest and most desolate-looking heaps of ruins. It looked like it had been dead for many years! Very little signs of life or vegetation, the once beautiful, wooded country was just a collection of dead stumps and bits of trees—a few odd ones standing here and there, but all dead, as the asphyxiating gas used by the Germans killed every living thing.
Serre was really part of Puisieux, but had no inhabitants left. Puisieux had about 250 but before the war had a population of over 1,000. The reason they had not returned was the lack of money to work their devastated fields into order again. Sheffield had given a steam tractor, but it was at Arras because no one knew how to drive it, but a man had been sent from Puisieux to take lessons.
A Sheffield-Serre Memorial committee, chaired by Alderman Wardley, raised funds for the memorial, and Major C.B. Flockton, architect, offered a prize of five guineas for the best design, won by J.S. Brown, of Barnsley Road, an ex-serviceman studying in the Department of Architecture at Sheffield University.
The memorial, in Villebois stone, was erected on a slope overlooking the field where within an hour the battalion suffered 600 casualties. On its inscription, in English and French:
“To the memory of the officers and men of the 12th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment (Sheffield City Battalion) who fell before Serre 1916.”
Above were four bronze plaques, representative of Sheffield’s Coat of Arms, those of Serre, and the regimental badge of the York and Lancasters.
The memorial was unveiled on Monday 21 May 1923. The gathering of Frenchmen and Englishmen included about a hundred people from Sheffield, among them a company of survivors of the battalion, besides parents and friends, and citizens who occupied prominent positions during the war.
The memorial to those of the City Battalion who fell. On the right were members of the battalion and their friends. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
It was unveiled by Lieutenant-Colonel G.H. Wedgewood, D.S.O., commanding the 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, and was dedicated by Dr H. Gresford Jones, Bishop of Kampala (who was Vicar of Sheffield from 1912 to 1920).
Perhaps the saddest moment of all was the sounding of the Last Post and the Reveille. As these well-known notes rang over the battlefields, thoughts fled back to the happy days at Redmires, and again to the long rows of little wooden crosses in the valley yonder, beside stinted, and blasted trees that had once been copses.
Captain Douglas Leng opened the proceedings before the unveiling ceremony. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.A presentation by the Mayor of Bapaume, Sheffield’s adopted city in France, to the architect of the memorial. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.Survivors ready for the march past in May 1923. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
In 1926, a large wooden hut was erected nearby, much to the disappointment of survivors, and even the Mayor of Puisieux, who complained that it overshadowed the memorial. After months of negotiation, the owner of the land adjoining the memorial agreed to remove two huts after he was paid 3,000 francs, the cost met by the Sheffield ‘Twelfth Club’ (made up of ex-servicemen) on condition that the owner would not erect anything else of a similar nature.
Serre-lès-Puisieux was slowly rebuilt, but only as a hamlet of houses dotted along the road. The Sheffield Battalion Memorial survived World War Two and remains as a tribute to Sheffield’s lost sons – still honoured by the French who regularly lay flowers and wreaths around it.
In 2006, the memorial was restored and re-dedicated by the Right Rev. Jack Nicholls, Bishop of Sheffield.
(The Sheffield Battalion Memorial isn’t the only dedication to those lost in France, and in a future post we’ll look at the nearby park owned by the City of Sheffield).
J.S. Brown’s winning entry in C.B. Flockton’s 1921 competition to create the Sheffield Battalion Memorial at Serre-lès-Puisieux. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
Denounced by theatrical knight Bernard Miles, by councillors at public meetings and in the media, Colin George carried the day to build the Crucible Theatre, inspired by the legendary director Tyrone Guthrie, who died before he could direct the Crucible’s first play, Ibsen’s rarely-produced epic Peer Gynt.Photograph: Tenby Observer.
Here’s a book that will become a collectors item, and a must for those who appreciate Sheffield’s recent history. ‘Stirring Up Sheffield,’ a substantial book, is written by the Crucible Theatre’s first Artistic Director, Colin George, and his son, Tedd George, and will be published by Wordville Press on 9 November 2021.
This is the extraordinary story of a group of visionaries who came together to build the revolutionary thrust stage theatre. The radical design they proposed for the auditorium—which redefined the actor/audience relationship—aroused fierce opposition from Sheffield’s conservative quarters and several of the era’s theatrical luminaries. But it also galvanised a new generation of Britain’s actors, directors, designers and playwrights who launched a passionate defence of the thrust stage and its theatrical potential.
Colin George was the founding Artistic Director of the Crucible Theatre. Born in Pembroke Dock, Wales, in 1929, Colin read English at University College, Oxford, and was a founding member of the Oxford and Cambridge Players. After acting in the repertory companies of Coventry and Birmingham, Colin joined the Nottingham Playhouse in 1958 as Assistant Director to Val May. In 1962, he was appointed as Assistant Director at the Sheffield Playhouse, becoming Artistic Director in 1965. Colin played a leading role in the creation of the Crucible Theatre, which opened in November 1971, and was the Crucible’s Artistic Director from 1971 to 1974.
“My father was Artistic Director of the Playhouse and the previous year Sheffield City Council had agreed that the Playhouse should have a new theatre. Discussions on its design were already advanced, but my father was unhappy with the proposed stage and wanted to break free from the ‘picture box’ proscenium arch and bring the actors closer to the audience.” – Tedd George. Photograph: Wordville Press.
During his tenure Colin also established Sheffield Theatre Vanguard. This innovative scheme took theatre out of the Crucible to engage with the wider Sheffield community. Sheffield Theatres continues to build on his legacy with Sheffield People’s Theatre, a cross-generational community company which trains and nurtures the aspirations and skills of local people through special one-off projects and collaborations.
He later worked as Artistic Director of the Adelaide State Theatre Company (1976-1980), as Artistic Director of the Anglo-Chinese Chung Ying Theatre Company (1983-1985) and as Head of Drama at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (1985-1992). Colin joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as an actor (1994-96 & 1997-99).
The Crucible Theatre is today one of Britain’s major touring venues and a Producing House in its own right, and is also famous for being the home of the World Snooker Championship, screened on TVs all over the world every year. Image: Sheffield Theatres.
In 2011 Colin was invited by the Crucible’s Artistic Director, Daniel Evans, to join the Company for the 40th anniversary production of Othello. This was to be his last theatrical performance and, fittingly, it took place on the thrust stage he had created. Following Othello, Colin produced the first draft of this book, before his death in October 2016.
The introduction is by Sir Ian McKellen:
“Adventures need heroes and here its principal one is Colin George, the first artistic director of The Crucible Theatre, who in this memoir recalls in fascinating detail how, aided by others locally and internationally, a dream came true. Here, too, there are troublesome villains, who failed to share our hero’s imagination and determination.”
In 2011, in the theatre’s 40th anniversary production of Othello with Dominic West and Clarke Peters, Daniel Evans invited George back to play Desdemona’s aged father. It was George’s last role, in a theatre he loved and which was now garlanded with awards. And it was a full house. Photograph: The Guardian.
Old County Court, Bank Street, Sheffield. Many people have now forgotten what it was originally used for.Photograph: Crosthwaite Commercial.
To Bank Street, and a forgotten Grade II listed building, that was almost lost before it had even been completed.
This is the Old County Court, built in 1854, to replace court sessions that had previously been held at the Old Town Hall on Castle Street.
It was designed by Charles Reeves (1815-1866), an architect and surveyor to the Metropolitan Police from 1843, and from 1847 architect to the County Courts in England and Wales, designing 64 new courts across the country.
County Courts, as now, dealt with civil cases, including those about personal debt. They were not there to decide whether someone was ‘innocent’ or ‘guilty, did not issue fines, and neither did it imprison anyone in debt.
Work started on the new County Court in early 1854 and was due to be completed by October. However, one night in September, just as it was nearing completion, a serious fire broke out.
A young man called Henry Bradshaw noticed smoke coming out of one of the windows and climbed over the builders’ hoardings to investigate.
In one of the back offices, he found wood shavings on fire in several places. He tried to stamp the fires out but scorched his feet. The fire spread to stacks of wooden floorboards and Bradshaw was forced to raise the alarm at the offices of the Sheffield and North of England Insurance Companies.
The fire engines arrived within five minutes, but until a supply of water could be obtained from the main, the small engines were worked with water brought in buckets from adjoining houses.
The fire quickly spread, and the back suite of rooms became one mass of blaze.
Floorboards on the upper rooms had not been laid and this hampered efforts to fight the fire, with several firemen injured by falling between joists. The heat became so intense that roof lead melted, and with no floor intervening, it fell onto firemen below who were severely burned.
However, the blaze was prevented from reaching the front of the building, but the whole of the woodwork of the back rooms and the roof of that portion were destroyed.
It was suspected that a group of boys had broken into the building, setting fire to wood shavings by lighting matches.
The damage amounted to between £300 and £400 (about £35K-£45K today)- the cost falling on the contractor, Miles Barber, who was not insured. (Barber was later responsible for the widening of Lady’s Bridge in 1866).
The opening was delayed until 1855 and the property rebuilt.
The last County Court sitting at the Old Town Hall was on 12 July 1855 and the first session in the new building, presided by Judge Walker, was on the 18 July.
The building was in Italian style, with two entrances in Bank Street – one a private entrance for the judge, etc, and the other entrance for the public.
On the ground floor were offices for the high bailiff and clerks’ rooms for the entering of plaints and the payment of money, and a strong room for storing books and records, fitted with slate shelves, and iron fireproof doors with Chubb patent locks.
On the basement floor were water closets, etc, and four rooms for the office keeper.
The court room was on the second storey (revolutionary for its time) – 43ft long by 27 wide, and 22 feet high. On the same floor was a private room for the Judge, barristers and attorneys’ consultation room, jury room, and a large entrance hall or waiting room for parties attending the court.
The former main courtroom. Photograph: Crosthwaite Commercial.
While Sheffielders considered this a ‘fine’ building, it seems not to have been popular with those who worked there.
In 1901, Judge Waddy K.C. criticised the acoustic properties of the County Court. “The building was erected under exceptional circumstances, which I do not want to go into because the people are dead; but the result of it is, that a very considerable amount of money was spent, and I think not wisely.”
When it was built, Bank Street had been a quiet street, but by now had become a regular thoroughfare, so full of noise and disturbance, that it was impossible sometimes for them to get on with their work.
The stench from the main court by the middle of the day was said to be “perfectly shocking,” while the sanitary arrangements were “not fit to be used by considerable bodies of people.”
Poor acoustics were also mentioned in 1923 when Judge Lias and officials complained of difficulty in hearing evidence and suggested that the front of the Judge’s desk should be lowered.
Alterations to the court were eventually completed, including an annexe at the rear, and it functioned as the County Court until 1996 when it moved to new Law Courts at West Bar. The building was sold, and its interiors converted into offices, the configuration altered, but the stone cantilevered staircase survived.
When the building was put up for sale it had been used as office space.Photographs: Crosthwaite Commercial.
It was acquired by One Heritage Group in January 2021 for conversion into 22 one- and two-bedroom single storey and duplex apartments that will be split over four floors. The developer says these are carefully designed to showcase the building’s inherent Grade II listed features such as high ceilings, deep skirtings, and original architraves. Planning permission was granted in August 2021.
Proposed restorations and new apartments at the Old County Court.Photographs: One Heritage Group.
“When built, The Meridian will become a welcome focal point for residents and visitors to Sheffield, realising the council’s ambitions for the city.” – Ketan Patel, senior development manager at Godwin Developments. Photograph: Godwin Developments.
Sheffield City Council has granted planning permission for a 23-storey apartment block on the edge of the city centre, and it will change the appearance of what was once known as Granville Square.
The 336-apartment build-to-rent development – known as The Meridian – will be built on the site of the British Rail Club Sports Ground, on a triangular parcel of land bound by Farm Road and Queens Road, next to Grosvenor Casino.
It will include one, two and three-bedroom modern open-plan apartments, 94 of which will have private balconies. There will also be a concierge reception, co-working spaces, residents’ only lounge and gym, a landscaped roof garden and plaza, 358 cycle storage spaces and 29 car parking spaces.
An 1824 map shows the site within open countryside, with the boundaries of Queens Road and Farm Road already established routes at this time. Small settlements began to grow to the west, with the east defined by a large house known as ‘The Farm,’ giving origin to the road name (demolished in 1967, and now the site of Sheffield College).
By 1921 the site was surrounded by urban buildings to the west and the introduction of the railway defined the boundary to the east.
The site is an open space derived from its historic use as a bowling green and historic maps indicate that no buildings have existed within the site boundary.
Farm Road seen in the 1940s/50s. The site of The Meridian is to the right on land that has never been built upon. It was most recently used as a bowling green. McDonalds now occupies the site to the left. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.
The current state of Chapel Walk is in stark contrast to when it was Tucker Alley, leading from Fargate into the rural idyll of Alsop Fields. Photograph: Sheffield Star.
Let us dismiss a legend before we go any further. I cannot find any evidence that bodies are buried beneath Chapel Walk, but there again, nor can I prove that they aren’t. The only connection with the ‘dead’ these days is the number of empty shops and lack of pedestrians.
Since the 1990s, the decline of Chapel Walk is the most remarkable example of degeneration in Sheffield city centre. From being a busy thoroughfare, where people struggled to avoid bumping into each other, it has become a ‘ghost’ street, but one that has the most potential to be impressive again.
Chapel Walk is one of our oldest streets, with origins in medieval times, but its importance surfaces in the 1700s.
At that time, every house on Prior Gate (High Street) had long gardens behind them, backing onto Alsop Fields, a rural and agricultural area sloping down to the River Sheaf.
In 1660, followers of Rev. James Fisher, vicar of Sheffield, broke away from Sheffield Parish Church to form the beginnings of Congregationalism. They met in rooms around the town but in 1700 rented a site that faced ‘Farrgate’ and called it the New Chapel, the back of it looking across Alsop Fields.
On the death of the Rev. Timothy Jollie in 1714, the Trustees of the New Chapel appointed the Arian John Wadsworth, causing some dissenters to breakaway and build a new chapel.
They looked to John Tooker, an early Master Cutler, who lived on ‘Farrgate’ and agreed to sell a piece of garden behind his house for £60 to Elia Wordsworth, a prominent member of the seceding independents, to build a new meeting house.
The chapel, across gardens from New Chapel, was built in 1714 within Tooker’s Yard, access being from Tooker Alley (later Tucker Alley), a narrow thoroughfare, with the conveyance ensuring permanent right of way to the chapel from Fargate and Alsop Fields, and that the passage should never be narrower than two yards. Thereafter, Tucker Alley became known as Chapel Walk.
Only Fargate is familiar in this illustration. Tucker Alley became Chapel Walk. Norfolk Street was built at the edge of Alsop Fields. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
Because of their proximity to each other, New Chapel became the Upper Chapel with the one on Chapel Walk called Nether Chapel.
“One regrets that there is no picture available of the Nether Chapel of those far-off days. We can imagine the little congregation during a long sermon on a hot summer’s day being beguiled by the song of birds coming through the open windows. We can see them, through fancy’s eye, coming out after worship into the strong sunlight and indulging in a friendly chat under the shade of neighbouring trees, and then dispersing to their homes in the vicinity along narrow lanes with hedges of honeysuckle and hawthorn; the air fragrant with the scent of new-mown hay – the silence broken now and again by the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle grazing contentedly in the adjacent fields.”
The chapel was partly destroyed by fire in 1827, and foundations for a New Nether Chapel were laid in May. It cost £4,200 and looked towards Norfolk Street (built at the edge of Alsop Fields) instead of Chapel Walk which had done its duty for 113 years. Dr William Younge sold land fronting Norfolk Street allowing the creation of a new chapel yard.
This illustration shows land purchased for the New Nether Chapel. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
In 1826, Dr William Younge sold land fronting Norfolk Street for £700 allowing Nether Chapel to be rebuilt and giving them a new frontage. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.
Over the next hundred years, Sheffield changed considerably. Gone were those rural delights and solitudes. Nether Chapel now stood in the heart of a city of bricks and mortar. The countryside had been obliterated by factories, workshops, and offices, and Chapel Walk became a popular shopping street.
Chapel Walk was an incredibly busy shopping street during the 1970s. Photograph: Sheffield Star.
In 1931, Sheffield Corporation purchased a portion of the Nether Chapel yard in Norfolk Street for street improvement purposes. An ‘awkward bulge’ was removed bringing the frontage of Victoria Hall (1908), Nether Chapel, and St Marie’s Presbytery, into line. Photograph: British Newspaper Archive.
In 1963, congregations at Burngreave, Wicker, Queen Street and Nether Chapel resolved to unite and form one church and to build a new chapel in the city centre. Nether Chapel was demolished, and a new Central Congregational Church opened in 1971.
When the United Reformed Church was formed in 1972 from Congregational and Presbyterian denominations the Church became Central United Reformed Church. It was significantly altered in 2000 and stands at the Norfolk Street end of Chapel Walk.
Meanwhile, Chapel Walk has fallen on tough times. Not helped by the Fargate end being shrouded in ‘abandoned’ scaffolding for several years, attempts to regenerate the street have so far failed. However, with the right investment, this slender pedestrian walkway could rise again. Small independent shops?
NOTE:- Upper Chapel was remodelled in the 1840s, turned around to face across fields. It survives in solitude on Norfolk Street.
Norfolk Street end of Chapel Walk in the 1960s. Nether Chapel is on the left, the Victoria Hall is to the right. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.
Planning permission has been submitted for Leah’s Yard on Cambridge Street to be transformed into a new creative hub for independent businesses, with a slew of independent stores set to surround a public courtyard.
The venue will be operated by Tom Wolfenden, CEO of SSPCo, and James O’Hara of the Rockingham Group, who were appointed to the project by Sheffield City Council.
If approved, Leah’s Yard will be refurbished true to its current form, with a courtyard surrounded by small boutique shops, with the first and second floors hosting approximately 20 independent working studios.
The oldest buildings on the Leah’s Yard site are the two former houses fronting Cambridge Street that date from the early nineteenth century. The industrial legacy of Leah’s Yard began with George Linley in 1825 as a small shear and tool manufacturing complex during the early nineteenth century. The houses fronting the street were later converted to offices and shops, and the complex as a whole is characterised by piecemeal additions and alterations dating from the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Cambridge Street was known for its horn works, and James Morton, a horn dealer, became the major sole occupier about 1842.
Leah’s Yard was occupied from about 1891-92 by Henry Leah and Sons, a manufacturer of die stamps for silverware. By 1911 there were 23 occupants (little mesters) on site producing slightly different goods, and undertaking different processes yet all contributing to the cutlery trade.
The site was predominantly used for production associated with the metal trades well into the mid to late twentieth century. The Leah family remained in part of the complex until the 1970s when they merged with Spear and Jackson; they sold the site in the 1990s. The Cambridge Street frontage of the complex had been used as shops in its last few years of occupation, and takes into account the former Sportsman public house and Chubby’s recently closed takeaway.
As part of Heart of the City II, Leah’s Yard will sit alongside the upcoming Cambridge Street Collective and Bethel Chapel developments – both currently under construction – that will feature a contemporary food hall, cookery school, fine dining experience and live entertainment spaces.
Have you noticed a lot of seagulls recently? Their cries can be heard throughout the city centre, and out into the suburbs. And more than one person has said, “It must be bad weather on the coast because they’ve come inland.”
The closest beach as the crow flies is Cleethorpes Central Beach, in North East Lincolnshire, and is 62 miles from Sheffield. Seagulls have always come inland during winter for the simple reason that it’s warmer in urban areas, but now it seems we may have to get used to them all year long.
As far as we know, it was about 40 years ago, that some gulls decided they preferred Sheffield, and stayed on during the rest of the year. They first started to roost and gather in local parks like Meersbrook Park and Graves Park, back in the ice-cold grip of the winters of 1979 and 1980.
Now they can be seen across the city, with large groups reported in the city centre and around Crystal Peaks.
A disruption in the ready supply of fish, particularly waste, due to changes in the fishing industry, could be a contributing factor in the gulls heading inland.
Adult birds (3 years and over) having once bred in a town or city will generally return to the same colony year after year, often to the same nesting site.
Mating activity will start in February when birds begin to identify nesting sites, courting is in full swing by March, and by April the nest will have been made. Typically, eggs will be laid in late April or May, and the eggs start to hatch in June. Matters get much worse in July and August when the young birds fledge (begin to fly).
It appears to be only the Herring and Lesser black-backed gulls that breed in Sheffield. They prefer flat roofs with a little substrate (gravel etc). They build a very simple nest of moss and other vegetation and if needs be this can be done in a matter of hours. Typically three eggs are laid in each nest. On a modern building, nests will tend to be built behind a parapet wall or where there is protection from the elements.
Gulls like circling round tall buildings: they use the updraughts to gain height, while they socialise or study the neighbourhood for food.
It is thought that the Moorfoot building has provided perfect nesting and roosting points for them, and there is lots of food which is easily available. Even if not fed by people there are always rubbish dumps and litter they can eat, for example, fish and chips dropped on pavements.
Much of the birds’ success in cities is due to their long lives, which allows the birds to build up an extensive memory of where and how to find food. Unlike garden songbirds (which generally live 3-5 years), gulls can live decades and accumulate valuable experience.
Young gulls have been brought up with no knowledge of anywhere except urban life. None of them know how to catch a fish and have now reached the third or fourth generation.
And so, it appears that our seagulls are here to stay.
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