Tag: Porter Street

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Streets

Earl Way – while you were sleeping last night

While you were sleeping last night. This is a wet and deserted Earl Way, which lies parallel between The Moor and Eyre Street.

If we go back to Norman times, and the time of Thomas de Furnival, this was thought to have been the site of a large ditch at the edge of Sheffield Deer Park, one of England’s largest deer parks, and spanning a circumference of eight miles in total.

Earl Way is modern compared to most Sheffield roads. It was created in the second half of the twentieth century when this part of the city centre was redeveloped. Prior to this, there were three significant roads in the vicinity.

These were Porter Street, that ran diagonally from Hereford Street, towards Moorhead, and Porter Lane, a narrow road that linked it with Union Lane.

Union Lane once ran from Charles Street, near to the Roebuck Tavern, across Furnival Road (now Furnival Gate) and ended at Jessop Street (where the Moor Market now stands). The only surviving section of Union Lane is behind Derwent House, near The Roebuck (think deer).

In this photograph, it would have run along the left hand side where the former Plug nightclub and Kit-Kat car-park stand. Porter Street would have been to the right.

If we could go back in time, right in the centre of the picture, and in the middle of the road, would have been Porter Street School.

There were two reasons why Earl Way came into being.

Up until the 1930s, this was an area of back-to-back housing and designated for slum clearance. Then came World War Two. German bombs caused extensive damage around The Moor, Porter Street, and Eyre Street, leaving the site to be redeveloped afterwards.

Union Lane disappeared, and Earl Way was built as a link road to Earl Street (seen running across the end of the road here).

And familiar landmarks appeared too, including the Pump Tavern, later demolished to make way for the Moor Market, and Violet May, a record shop, run by a pivotal figure in the development of the music scene in Sheffield.

Perhaps the most dramatic modern building is the Kit-Kat car-park, designed by Broadway Malyan in 2008, and sold for £9m last month by joint owners NewRiver and BRAVO Strategies.

©2022 David Poole. All Rights Reserved.

Categories
Streets

Hereford Street: two photographs seventy years apart

Aerial photograph of Hereford Street (top to bottom) in 1951
Aerial photograph of Hereford Street (top to bottom) in 2021

Two photographs that show how a Sheffield street lost its identity.

Hereford Street is shown as a wide thoroughfare in 1951, a continuation of Charlotte Road, and intersected by narrow St Mary’s Road, and Porter Street (that became the lower end of Eyre Street). It joined The Moor that continued south towards London Road. Note that Bramall Lane roundabout did not exist.

Seventy years later, the outline of Hereford Street can still be seen but is split by two dual carriageways – St Mary’s Road and Eyre Street. Gone are the factories, houses, and small shops, and the Moor-end is pedestrianised, and this section of The Moor lost beneath the Moorfoot Building.

Sadly, this area has become an unloved part of the city centre with Hereford Street falling on hard times.

Most astonishing is that few buildings appear in both photographs. Most were swept away for road development, factories were surplus to requirement, and old houses and shops deemed unfit for purpose.

St Mary’s Church, on Bramall Lane, does appear in both photographs. In 1951, it was covered in soot and suffered from air pollution, but look how large the churchyard was, and how much was taken away to make St Mary’s Road a dual-carriageway.

Buildings to point out in the modern-day image are the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Headquarters and Moor Markets (left), Decathlon and Deacon House (centre) and, of course, the Moorfoot Building (bottom).

© 2021 David Poole. All Rights Reserved

Categories
Buildings

History in the wall – From Martins Bank to an eyesore

Former Martins Bank, now listed as Cumberland House, on Eyre Street, Sheffield. Photograph: DJP/2021

History is all around us. Keep your eyes open and sometimes you will see something that reveals something of our past. At the corner of Eyre Street and Cumberland Street, set in the wall of a building, is an old night safe. Unused for forty-eight years, it is marked ‘Martins Bank Limited’.

It is an obvious clue as to the origins of this rather run-down looking 1960s building, and tells us that once-smart buildings can become eyesores if we don’t look after them.

A clue at the building’s former use. Night safes were built on the outside of banks, allowing money to be deposited into the bank’s safe outside of bank opening hours. Photograph: DJP/2021

Martin’s Bank was a London private bank that could trace its origins back to the London goldsmiths. Martin’s agreed to its acquisition by the Bank of Liverpool in 1918, which wanted a London presence and a seat on the London Bankers’ Clearing House; the Martin’s name was retained in the title of the enlarged bank which was known as The Bank of Liverpool and Martin’s Limited. The title was shortened to Martins Bank Limited (without an apostrophe) in 1928.

The bank had a presence in Sheffield from 1927 when the Equitable Bank, at 64 Leopold Street, merged with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins. It outgrew the premises and opened a new branch in the Telephone Buildings at the bottom of West Street in 1930. It wasn’t until 1960 that a Sheffield University branch was opened, quickly followed by this purpose-built bank  – Sheffield Moor – on Eyre Street. (Another, on Bank Street, came later).

This branch opened in 1961 on land that had once been the site of Greer and Rigby, Surgeons, and land left vacant after the bombings of World War Two.

Junction of Porter Street and Cumberland Street (in background). No 118, Porter Street, former premises of Greer and Rigby, Surgeons. Former entrance to Court No. 10 on left. Porter Street later became part of Eyre Street. Photograph: Picture Sheffield
Martins Bank in 1963. It did not occupy all the building, following the Victorian tradition of creating shop and office rental space to generate additional income. Photograph: Picture Sheffield
Martins Bank in 1970. The old buildings adjacent were demolished to make way for Deacon House. Photograph: Picture Sheffield

According to archives, this part of Sheffield was too far from the old commercial quarter to be effectively served by the West Street branch. “A beautiful modern building with interior décor which responds to the full blaze of sunshine most cheerfully, or, on a dark day when the illuminated ceiling has to be switched on, creates an oasis of light, warmth and welcome which makes it a pleasure to step inside.”

Photograph: Martins Bank Archive Collection
Photograph: Martins Bank Archive Collection

The ground floor was shared with Olivetti, typewriters, and office machine dealers, while the British Wagon Company occupied part of the first floor.

Martins Bank was bought by Barclays in 1968 and five years later the Sheffield Moor branch was closed – its existence as a bank lasting only twelve years.

The building itself was used for a variety of purposes, even a gym, and is now sub-divided as office space.

© 2021 David Poole. All Rights Reserved