St James’s Street now called St James Street. Named after St James Church that stood at the end of the road. Image: DJP / 2024
It’s hard to imagine now, but long ago, a huge swathe of land in the city centre, belonged to the Vicarage of the Parish Church (now Sheffield Cathedral).
Up to 1787, the Vicarage stood in solitary dignity, which originally included the large triangle whose base was the western side of the churchyard (the whole length of what is now St James’s Row), and whose sides were Church Lane (now Church Street) and Campo Lane, with the apex at Townhead (Street).
There had been older vicarages, but the last structure was within high walls at what is now the corner of St James’s Row and St James’s Street (the site of the former Blue Moon Café), the entrance being from the latter, through double doors that led into a yard.
The centre of the house, low with no upper storey, was the older part, with a structure of lath, beams, and plaster. The higher wings flanking this on either side were later additions.
The windows were round headed, and according to Robert Leader, the vicarage had no architectural pretensions, with its yellow washed walls, and wasn’t a picturesque building.
A considerable piece of land, in a growing town, had become valuable, and in 1786, Vicar James Wilkinson had applied for and obtained from Parliament, power to set aside a portion of the Vicarage estate for the purpose of erecting another church, or chapel of ease, and for letting off land for building purposes.
As a result, the land was let on building leases, with houses built for surgeons and attorneys. St James Church was built (destroyed in WW2), and a Girl’s Charity School erected. Later additions included the Gladstone Building and Cairn’s Chambers.
In these new circumstances, the Vicarage was doomed and eventually demolished.
There is nothing that shows this was once Vicarage land, but there is a clue in the rising slope of Vicar Lane, and if you look closely, there is a part of the Vicarage that remains.
This is the large stone step of the former St James’s Street entrance to W.H. and J.H. Eadon’s auction room (former Blue Moon Café) and was the mantel shelf of the chief room in the oldest part.
The last surviving trace of the old Vicarage. Image: DJP / 2024
Virgin Money has a lease with building owner Fargate Properties until 2035
Good news for the former Yorkshire Bank building at the top of Fargate. York-based Pivovar which has venues including Sheffield Tap at Sheffield railway station, has applied to open it as Fargate Tap, serving ‘late night refreshments’ until 1am Monday to Saturday.
It was originally built as the Yorkshire Penny Bank, with the Albany Hotel above, in 1889.
It operated as Yorkshire Bank until closure in 2020 as a result of its takeover of Virgin Money that already had a branch on the other side of Fargate. The bank has been empty ever since.
At the same time, the BBC reports that Sheffield City Council is saying that rising costs and delays are hampering the regeneration of Fargate, High Street and Castle Square.
The council successfully bid for £15.8m from the government’s Future High Streets Fund in April 2021. The original costs of work on Fargate, High Street and Castle Square were estimated to be £8.8m based on tender prices, but following detailed design, these costs rose to nearly £18m.
The Fargate works are estimated to cost £14.4m, the increase primarily due to inflation, and there have been delays with paving supplies, issues with ground conditions and technical approval of underground bins. South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) has provided an additional £4.6m of funding to ensure the work is completed.
The council says Fargate should be substantially completed’ before Christmas but it was not expected to be fully finished until early in 2025.
Construction on the Event Central cultural hub on Fargate will now fall into the 2025/26 financial year, and work on High Street and Castle Square has been paused while the council concentrates its budget on Fargate.
Midland Station Hotel. Image from Industries of Sheffield: Business Review British Industrial Publishing Company, [1888]. Courtesy of Picture Sheffield
A question that was asked of me recently. Why didn’t Sheffield Station have a hotel attached to it? Considering that the Victoria Station had the Victoria Hotel (now the Crowne Plaza Royal Victoria), why didn’t the old Midland Station have one too? Especially when most towns and cities benefited from a large hotel in proximity.
A bit of research suggests that the Midland Station did have a hotel, maybe not the grandest, and didn’t last long.
The Midland Station Hotel was built on Sheaf Street in 1879 and demolished in 1903.
It coincided with improvement works to the Midland Station that gained a handsome new facade, as well as an extra railway line. Sheaf Street was widened and diverted to improve the tramway network to the station.
The land that the Midland Station Hotel stood upon was used to make way for new railway sidings, and these would have been where the present day wasteland (formerly the site of Dyson House) stands today.
The hotel was owned by the Truswell’s Brewery Company, Eyre Street, and opened on Christmas Eve 1879 with George Wood being the first and only tenant, completing almost twenty-four years service, and becoming the oldest proprietor of a commercial and family hotel in Sheffield.
It was bought by the Midland Railway Company in anticipation of the redevelopment and subsequent demolition.
Where in this ever changing city would the Midland Station Hotel have stood?
It’s hard to imagine now, but it is possible to trace its exact location.
There is a large pelican crossing that crosses Sheaf Street from Sheffield Station to the bottom of Howard Street. It reaches a paved area before pedestrians must cross a narrow stretch of lower Pond Street before proceeding up Howard Street towards the city centre. This paved area is where the Midland Station Hotel once stood.
What I cannot answer is why another large hotel wasn’t built to replace it.
Sheaf Square, once the site of the Midland Station Hotel (1879-1903). Image: Google
The statue of Mercury, by Wendy Wallin, is back on top of the Lyceum Theatre after restoration. Image: DJP / 2024
Read on for some good news.
A thought occurred to me. That somewhere, in an abandoned shed, a barn, or maybe in somebody’s back garden, is the missing statue of Mercury that once stood proudly on Sheffield Lyceum Theatre’s dome. It was thought to have been removed in the 1930s and disappeared.
In 1990, a replica was made, and erected as part of the Lyceum’s restoration. This was made by Wendy Wallin, around 12-foot-tall, and was made using fibreglass with a layer of paint on the outside containing copper flakes.
Alas, its inner steel framework had started to corrode, and last year was also removed.
After carefully crafted repairs, Mercury has been hauled back into place, and as this new photo shows, ‘Freddie’ as he is nicknamed, is back at his vantage point overlooking Tudor Square and the city.
By the way, Mercury is the Roman God of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travellers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he also served as the guide of the underworld and the ‘messenger of the gods’.
Vulcan stands on top of Sheffield Town Hall. Image: Thawantsshooitin
There is a statue of Vulcan on top of the Town Hall, and the more I look at it, the more I see him as the protector of Sheffield. And he’s been doing this for 128 years, and when bombs destroyed the city centre in December 1940, one of the local newspapers put a drawing of Vulcan on its front page and the words DEFIANT!
The Town Hall was built in Renaissance Revival style by Edward William Mountford, a London architect, who also designed Town Halls at Battersea and Lancaster, as well as the Old Bailey.
Work began in 1890 and finished by September 1896, but it wasn’t until 1897 that Queen Victoria officially opened it.
Mountford had wanted something special to stand on top of the one hundred feet clock tower and chose an Italian, Mario Raggi, to create the Vulcan statue.
Vulcan, the Roman God of the furnace, the patron of all smiths and other craftsmen who depend on fire, was adopted as a symbol of Sheffield in 1843.
Mario Raggi was born in Carrara, in Tuscany, in 1821, notable for marble used since the time of Ancient Rome, and it was no surprise that Raggi became interested in sculpture.
He trained at the local academy, and then studied in Rome under Pietro Tenerani before moving to London in 1850 where he first worked for Raffaelle Monti, and then under Matthew Noble.
Raggi exhibited at the Royal Academy and was famous for memorials to Benjamin Disraeli at Parliament Square and Gladstone at Albert Square, Manchester. He also completed three monumental statues of Queen Victoria in Hong Kong, Toronto, and Kimberley in South Africa.
In 1875, he set up his own workshop at Cumberland market, between London’s Regent’s Park and Euston Railway Station, at 44 Osnaburgh Street.
I have the first possible reference to our Vulcan… and that is in 1892 when Signor Raggi had almost completed a standing statue of Vulcan, ‘with a hammer in his right hand, his right foot resting on an anvil and in his left hand, held aloft, three arrows, and intended for Sheffield Town Hall.’
Vulcan is seven feet in height (although other measurements of nine and eleven feet have been given)… and modelled from a Life-Guardsman. It was cast in bronze at the foundry of Henry Young and Co, Eccleston Works, Pimlico.
For a long time, the original plaster cast version was on show at the Mappin Art Gallery until it became irreparably damaged, due to frequent moving to avoid air raids during World War Two and was broken up and discarded.
The Special Gallery at Mappin Art Gallery in 1937. In the centre, the ‘lost’ plastercast version of Vulcan by Mario Raggi. Image: Sheffield City Council
The plastercast version of Vulcan seen in 1897
The bronze statue was erected in 1896 by Cromwell Wiley Hartley, a daring Sheffield steeplejack who completed the task in fierce winds that threatened to dislodge him, but he managed to securely bolt Vulcan to its foundation.
The following year, Hartley climbed the tower again, and fixed an electric light in Vulcan’s extended hand to celebrate the visit of Queen Victoria, then stood on the head of the statue earning him the title as the ‘man with the iron nerve.’ A photograph was taken at the time, by Mr Taylor of Norfolk Street showing him in this risky position but appears to be lost.
In 1926, Reginald T Rea, the manager of the Albert Hall, which stood on the site of the former John Lewis building, erected a telescope in Barker’s Pool which focused on the statue of Vulcan. It was intended as a publicity stunt and the one penny proceeds from looking through the telescope went to Sheffield hospitals.
It was an enormous success, with an average 2,500 views a day, and the suggestion is that it became a permanent attraction. There is reference to a telescope in World War Two, and through this a story emerged that Vulcan had lost his delicate parts during an air raid. (He appears to be intact now).
While Vulcan is made of bronze, he now has a green patina, the result of a slow corrosion process, which I’m told should not affect his future.
Another model of Vulcan was made at the same time, based on Raggi’s Sheffield original, cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, Providence, Rhode Island, and placed outside its headquarters in 1894. It differed slightly because while ours was nude, the American version wore a loin cloth. Alas, its whereabouts is unknown.
Vulcan. Cast by Gorham, Providence, after the model by Mario Raggi, dated 1893 on a spreading bronze-mounted granite plinth base
Alexandra Theatre, Blonk Street. Demolished 1914. Image: Picture Sheffield
I recently posted about Alexandra House at Castlegate, which was erected on part of the site of the Alexandra Theatre that was demolished in 1914. Before then, Castlegate didn’t exist, and the theatre would have stretched right across the present road towards Blonk Street.
None of us can remember the Alexandra Theatre and it’s hard to imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday. It lasted only seventy-eight years but played an important part in Sheffield’s cultural history.
It didn’t start out as a theatre at all, but as a circus. The Victorian circus ring was different to today, providing a showcase for equestrian battle scenes, jugglers, clowns, female acrobats, and child performers.
The first record we have of a circus near the New Cattle Market at the confluence of the River Sheaf and River Don was in 1836 when John Brown laid the first stone. The building was designed by the architect James Harrison, Norfolk Row, and opened as the Royal Circus with ‘Tourniare’s Splendid Equestrian Establishment consisting of forty-two horses belonging to French, German, and Italian Equestrians.’
History books mention that it was built by Mr Egan, but this person has eluded me to the point that I’m beginning to doubt he ever existed. I can confirm that it was built for a company called Sheffield New Circus and Theatre and its interior was a copy of the famous Astley’s Amphitheatre in Westminster Bridge Road, London.
The shareholders were Mr Ryan (proprietor, a well-established equestrian, and circus owner), Mr Usher (manager, and former clown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), Mr Sambourne (solicitor), and Mr Harrison, the architect. By the following year, the shareholders were ready to let the circus on generous terms.
When Queen Victoria was proclaimed in 1837, there is reference to the spectacle seen at the circus: –
“The gay trappings of the soldiers on their richly caparisoned horses; the flags waving gently, the sound of music almost lost in the distance, and the dense crowd around the circle, made the view from that point very imposing.”
In April 1838, Mr Ryan announced the opening of a new season at the New Theatre Circus with upward of one hundred horses and a company of dramatic, pantomime and operatic performers.
Victoria Hotel, Smithfield Hotel and Alexandra Theatre, Blonk Street from Furnival Road. Image: Picture Sheffield
While most Sheffielders referred to it as The Circus, it appears to have been known by several names. In those days, circuses were taken on seasonal leases by touring companies, and by 1839 it was advertised as Mr Batty’s Circus at the Royal Amphitheatre. A few years later it was the Royal Circus and by 1848 was called the Royal Adelphi Theatre under Mr Sloan who made significant changes.
“Considerable alterations have been made in the pit, and the middle of that hitherto dreary space is now fitted up with seats and protected from the cold by a close screen. By an admirable contrivance, the pit may be enlarged at pleasure. In its contracted state, a considerable number of persons may be comfortably seated; and if thrown open to the full size, hundreds more might find good accommodation. A new orchestra has also been constructed, and the whole house seems to wear a clean and lively, though yet unfinished, appearance. There is nothing striking or novel in the way of decoration; but in other respects, considerable efforts have been made to render the place more worthy of public patronage.”
Once again, the architect was James Harrison, and the building work was completed by Thomas Staniforth. “New Theatre! New Scenery! New Pit!”
The changes were made so that the Adelphi could show plays and compete with the only theatre in Sheffield, the Theatre Royal, but by 1849, it had proved unsuccessful, and the drama company dispersed.
Briefly known as the Theatre Royal Adelphi under Mr Cockrill, the lease passed to John Woodward who engaged Pablo Fanque’s Talented Troupe of Equestrians.
Pablo was a fascinating character, a Black man who started his own circus that toured across Yorkshire. In 1839, Pablo had spent the summer season with Andrew Ducrow’s troupe at Astley’s Amphitheatre and later toured with him.
In 1849, Pablo Fanque took on the lease for a year (not a season) at £200. He applied to magistrates for a theatre licence to perform stage plays but it was opposed by the owners of the Theatre Royal who claimed that one theatre in the town was sufficient (for a population of 130,000). To allow another theatre would have been to the detriment of both.
Fanque got his licence on the condition that he didn’t show serious drama but showed ‘spectacles’ that featured horses. The promise was kept for a brief time but soon there were performances of Othello, Julius Caesar, Richard the Third, The Merchant of Venice, and The Flowers of the Forest.
In 1850, a character called James Scott, a commercial traveller for a Leeds firm, bought the lease of the Adelphi from Pablo Fanque and managed to obtain a theatre licence.
By now, the Adelphi was owned by a consortium of eighteen people, headed by Dr John Carr, who was the Mayor of Sheffield in 1851.
Scott claimed that the owners had never drawn a shilling rent and that he had managed to turn a profit. When he left for another theatre at Derby, he stated that it was because the owners had demanded a greater share of the takings, but in truth, it was more likely because he’d been declared bankrupt in 1853.
This was also the year that the theatre was put up for sale because it had never made a profit for its owners.
When it was rumoured, that Scott was returning to the Adelphi in 1859, the lease was quickly acquired by Thomas Youdan, the proprietor of the Surrey Theatre, in West Bar, who used it for storage of scenery and lumber.
Auction notice from August 1853
Alexandra Theatre, Rear view, showing stilts over the combined flow of the rivers Don and Sheaf, from Exchange Street Bridge. Image: Picture Sheffield
Youdan made several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a theatre licence and contemplated turning it into a first-class concert hall, but for three years it remained dark and in a poor state of repair.
Youdan was born at Streetthorpe, near Doncaster, and had started as an agricultural labourer, before coming to Sheffield aged eighteen to work as a silver stamper for James Dixon and Sons. Abandoning the trade, he became the keeper of a beer house at Park, and then moved to an inn at West Bar called Spink’s Nest. He added music and singing to the public house and eventually became its owner, creating the Surrey Theatre with ballroom, theatre, concert hall, museum of curiosities, and a menagerie of animals from George Hunloke’s Wingerworth Hall.
When the Surrey Theatre burnt down on 25 March 1865, Youdan sustained a £30,000 loss, but was able to switch his business to the Adelphi Theatre.
He had it improved, cleaned its ‘black’ exterior, replaced all its fittings, and extended it with a stage house that was built on girders over the River Sheaf behind, and reopened it as the Alexandra Music Hall with accommodation for 3,000 to 4,000 people.
‘Tommy’ Youdan was a well-known figure and had a clever idea of what would please the Sheffield worker. He secured the most popular and exciting dramas and the cutlers and grinders, and steelworkers, thoroughly enjoyed a night at ‘Tommy’s.’
He was joined by William Brittlebank as manager and the two increased the prestige of the house of which they obtained a lengthy lease.
That was the commencement of more prosperous days with ballet and varieties, and on its boards appeared the stars of the day, including George Leybourne, prince of comedians; Sam Cowell, Arthur Lloyd, J.H. Milburn, and other celebrities. Sim Reeves also sang there and cursed the draughts from the river which flowed beneath the stage.
Youdan later renamed the theatre as the Alexandra Opera House, before retiring in 1874, and passing the lease to William Brittlebank.
During Brittlebank’s 20 years’ connection, such famous artists as J.L. Toole, Barry Sullivan, Charles Dillon, Marie Roze, Mrs Langtry, Charles Wyndham, E.S. Willard, Lewis Waller, Nelly Farren, Kate Vaughan, G.H. Harkins, and Henry Neville appeared in turn. The latter appeared in the best of the sporting dramas of Sir Augustus Harris from Drury Lane, and the pantomimes, too, were second to none.
Poster for the Alexandra Opera House, Blonk Street. Image: Picture Sheffield
Brittlebank retired in 1895, and the theatre was taken over by a private company, with William David Forsdyke as managing director, who increased the seating capacity of the auditorium, and with a careful eye, watched the trend of public taste and catered accordingly.
He boldly advertised the Alexandra as the ‘People’s Theatre,’ and staged stirring domestic dramas and popular pantomimes that were originally produced in-house but were later sourced from London.
In this he was well aided by his acting managers, of whom none was more popular than C.W. Ramsey who managed it for the last ten years of its existence.
Ramsey had come to Sheffield as assistant to F.W. Purcell, then sole owner, and manager at the Theatre Royal. In 1904, on the death of the manager of the Alexandra Theatre, Ramsey was offered the job by W.D. Forsdyke, who was a well-known building contractor.
Advertisement for the Great Houdini, The Prison Breaker, Alexandra Theatre, Blonk Street. Image: Picture Sheffield
Pantomimes at the Alex usually ran from Christmas to just before Easter, and every Shrove Tuesday old folk were entertained and given gifts of tea, sweets, and tobacco. Ramsey also arranged nine benefits, usually under the patronage of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Earl and Countess Fitzwilliam and other notables, and the programme was contributed by artists from all the other theatres in the city.
The ‘Alex’ closed on Saturday 28 March 1914, its fixtures and fittings auctioned, and afterwards demolished as part of Sheffield Corporation’s scheme for making a better approach from the centre of the city to the Victoria Station.
Demolition of Alexandra Theatre, Blonk Street, showing the combined flow of rivers Don and Sheaf flowing underneath. Image: Picture Sheffield
These days it is boutique student accommodation, but it was built in 1923 as the Alexandra Hotel, and public house, alongside Hambleden House, W.H. Smith’s wholesale distribution centre (seen behind, now Exchange Place Studios), that had opened a year before.
It replaced an older Alexandra Hotel that would have stood to the left and out of shot in this photo, and demolished as part of street improvements that realigned Exchange Street with the approach to the old Victoria Station (nowadays, think of the sloping approach to the Crowne Plaza Royal Victoria Hotel).
Much of the site of Alexandra House would once have been the courtyard behind the Smithfield Hotel. Prior to the street improvements, the street line was much further forward and Castlegate did not exist until afterwards.
The right hand side of Alexandra House stands in what would have been the auditorium of the Alexandra Theatre whose frontage stretched from the Smithfield Hotel, along Blonk Street, and ended where public toilets were later built (now an empty cafe/bar) above the confluence of the River Sheaf and River Don (Castlegate/Blonk Street).
Both the Smithfield Hotel and Alexandra Theatre were demolished in 1914 to make way for the Exchange Street realignment and the creation of Castlegate.
Alexandra House, if only in name, still provides us with a glimpse of the past.
Exchange Place Studios, Sheffield. Image: DJP/2024
The recent post about WH Smith created a lot of interest, and this got me thinking about another Sheffield building associated with the company. Not as a shop, but as wholesale premises.
I’m referring to Hambleden House, at Exchange Place, often ignored by historians, that was built 102 years ago, and a fine example of an Art Deco building. These days it goes by the name of Exchange Place Studios, run by Yorkshire Artspace, and provides workspace for more than eighty artists and makers in 60 studio spaces.
In 1922, W.H. Smith erected this building on part of the site of the old Alexandra Theatre and was seen as an extension to the street improvement scheme around Exchange Street.
Since 1902, W.H. Smith had operated its wholesale business from York Street, but the growth of the business meant larger premises were required. The chosen site was ideal because of its proximity to the Victoria and Midland railway stations.
“The building itself fulfils the great essentials of good architecture and practical application, and undoubtedly declares its purpose in the scheme of things. The Doultonware facings are particularly suitable for a manufacturing city like Sheffield, and the general quality of the design of the front is most pleasing. With the iron panels in between, the whole effect strikes a modern note in construction.”
The Sheffield Daily telegraph described it as ‘simple and well-proportioned, bearing the distinctive characteristics of other W.H. Smith buildings which were to be found all over the country.’
This wasn’t surprising because the man who had the greatest influence over its design was F.C. Bayliss, superintending architect at W.H. Smith, and Marshall and Tweedy, all fellows of the Society of Architects. Its construction was completed by D. O’Neill and Son of Solly Street, which had been responsible for many large and important buildings in Sheffield.
The transfer between York Street and Exchange Place had to be executed so as not to disrupt the distribution of newspapers. It required careful planning, and with the help of A.B. Beckett, of Broomhall Street, it concluded business at York Street at one o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday 30 September 1922 and was installed in the new building by 6.15 the same day.
The News Despatch Department was in the basement with each district provided for. Every customer was given a numbered box and labelled with the customer’s name. As the papers arrived in the early morning, they were dropped down a chute, counted, and the customer’s orders were made up and boxed. To minimise labour, an electric lift went from the basement to the entrance door where parcels were loaded onto drays and conveyed to customers.
The ground floor acted as a shop where newsagents were able to buy back numbers at a moment’s notice. It seems strange now that the public often went into a newsagent’s and asked for out-of-date newspapers. The Book department was also here with large stocks of literature available for shopkeepers to buy.
On the first floor was a choice collection of stationary, fancy goods, leather articles, and china, that were set out in glass cabinets provided by A. Edmonds of Birmingham for the perusal of customers. Alongside it was the sweet store.
This was a good introduction to the second floor, that housed a vast collection of British and foreign toys, all imported by W.H. Smith itself. They sourced toy makers abroad and the goods went directly to the retailer without going through a middleman and allowing them to be sold cheaper.
The various representatives were housed on the third floor with special rooms arranged so that the firm’s buyers could meet with people and deal with their samples.
On the floors above were stockrooms from where the whole despatch of stock, apart from newspapers and books, were dealt with. On arrival, goods were checked, invoiced, and packed ready for delivery by rail or road. Part of the accommodation was set aside with a comfortable tea-room where customers could buy refreshments at nominal charges.
An innovation at the time was the use of pre-cast hollow concrete floors in its construction, a saving in dead-weight of 900 tons. This was brought to the site ready cast by the Leeds firm of Concrete Ltd and presumably remain.
Much was made about the amount of light that flooded the rooms through ‘modern and efficient’ windows. Mellowes and Co, a Sheffield firm, supplied the steel sashes and casements, and the special design allowed adequate strength to provide ‘walls of daylight’ and fulfilling the requirements of ventilation and safety.
Hambleden House, pictured here in 1922. Image: British Newspaper Archive
Why was it called Hambleden House?
It was named after William Frederick Danvers Smith, 2nd Viscount Hambleden (1868-1928), who had inherited the business in 1891.
W.H. Smith remained here until 1965 when it moved into part of Sheaf House, built for British Rail, next to Midland Station, where almost all its newsprint business had consolidated. Hambleden House had become too large and would subsequently be taken over by South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive from 1974.
Now thoroughly modernised, the exterior of the building looks much the same as it always did, except for the absence of a large clock that had originally been installed by A.G. Burrell and Co, of Change Alley, and once provided a service to railway passengers hurrying to catch their train.
NOTE: In September 2006, a new company, Smiths News, was created, the result of a demerger of W.H. Smith’s newpapers, magazines, books, and consumables, distribution business.
Former Midland Bank building at the corner of Pinstone Street and Charles Street. Now refurbished as part of the Isaacs Building. Image: DJP
It’s not often that developers leave ghost signs behind, but that is the case with the Isaacs Building at the corner of Pinstone Street and Charles Street. The old Midland Bank signs can be seen, a nod to its past, while much behind the facade is brand new. Midland Bank became part of HSBC in 1992 and this branch closed afterwards.
Pevsner seems to ignore this part of Sheffield city centre, so a bit of detective work was needed to find out about the building’s past. I can trace its construction back to 1888-89 when New Pinstone Street was created. I cannot find the name of the architect, but it was built by William Bissett and Sons, responsible for many important city buildings. Alas, the contract didn’t prove to be very numerative and whilst the company was halfway through work on Carmel House at Fargate, the company failed in dubious circumstances.
Typical of Victorian entrepreneurship, the building was designed as shops at ground level with offices above. The speculative owners of the property were Charles Henry Maleham, a gunsmith of West Bar and Regent Street, London, and Joseph Hardy, stockbroker.
Midland Bank, Pinstone Street, seen here in 1952. Image: Picture Sheffield
The first shop here was the Public Benefit Furnishing Company that lasted until 1908 when it was taken over by the T & T Tate Furnishing Company which operated until 1925 when Midland Bank moved in and converted it.
I suspect that this was the building that Charles Maleham left to the Town Trustees on his death in 1934. The condition being that income from the property be used to purchase paintings which were to be put on public exhibition. At least twenty-six paintings were purchased including two by J M W Turner and one each by Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Peter Lely and Augustus John.
The building survives as part of the Heart of the City redevelopment and, by coincidence, a nearby building, Grosvenor House on Cambridge Street, part of the same scheme, is now offices for HSBC.
ADDITION – I have added information provided by Robin Hughes who very kindly filled in the blanks.
“The building dates from 1884 – there’s a datestone, and it’s also in the planning register for the time – the same year as the Pepperpot on the downhill side, Pinstone Street having been cut through to Moorhead c1880. This was indeed the building that Maleham left his share of (Nos. 90-92). Although the plans are missing from the archives, the planning register mentions a Mr. Lockwood, who could be the architect H. W. Lockwood, who was also responsible for the spectacular Carmel House (former YMCA) on the corner of Fargate and Norfolk Row.”
Former Midland Bank building at the corner of Pinstone Street and Charles Street. Now refurbished as part of the Isaacs Building. Image: DJP
Grosvenor House, at the corner of Pinstone Street and the bottom of Cambridge Street, Sheffield. Image: DJP
Grosvenor House, home to HSBC, one of the first buildings to be completed in Sheffield’s Heart of the City 2 development. Prior to this, the site was occupied by a 1960s concrete block, topped by the Grosvenor House Hotel.
But let’s imagine that we can peel back time, to when this would have been wild moorland. The year was 1682 and a small house was built here. For whom, we shall never know, but it was extended over the next hundred years, and marked the edge of Sheffield town. Beyond the house was Sheffield Moor, a barren stretch of land, reputedly dangerous to cross, that stretched from the town boundary until it reached a small hamlet called Little Sheffield.
The likelihood is that somebody saw a business opportunity because by the early 1800s the house had been converted into an inn and stood on Coalpit Lane (renamed Cambridge Street in the 1860s).
“It was originally the last house in Sheffield, where the weary traveller, journeying between London and the immediate towns, could refresh themselves in the ‘qualifying flagon’ of home-brewed ale.”
In front of the inn stood two posts that held stocks in which evildoers were fastened and exposed to the jeers of passers-by. It was a frequent sentence inflicted on anyone found tippling during the hours of Divine service on Sundays or playing pitch-and-toss. The victims in the stocks were seated, and their ankles held fast.
Sheffield was well supplied with stocks. At one time, stocks and a pillory stood by the Town Hall which at that time was situated where the entrance to East Parade is now. There were also stocks at Attercliffe, Bridgehouses, and Fulwood.
It was a puzzle as to why there were stocks outside the Chequers Inn, especially as it was so close to the Sheffield stocks. This side of Coalpit Lane was actually outside the town boundary and the start of Ecclesall, and it was likely that the Sheffield constable (to save the rates) handed over a vagabond to the Ecclesall constable, and this was the ideal spot for him to be placed until released by the Ecclesall official and then he would be transferred from one place to another until his birthplace was found, and who would be compelled to keep him.
The Chequers Inn, also briefly known as the Old Cow, was in the Alsop and Barker family generation after generation, when it was purchased by James Padley, whose sons (one was the Borough Accountant) sold the property to Daniel Henry Quigley Coupe.
D.H. Coupe came from Worksop as a young man and had many ‘irons in the fire’, starting out as a labouring carter before buying the business of his employer Mr Milner. He grew the business until he owned 82 horses and carts before branching out into the coal trade at Midland Station. After he sold his coal business, he moved into the brewing industry and was sole partner in D.H. Coupe and Co, of the Albion Brewery, Ecclesall Road. He was the largest cottage property owner in Sheffield and paid more rates than any other man in the town.
By the time he bought the Chequers Inn, Sheffield had rapidly expanded, and it no longer backed onto the countryside. Not only that, but the inn was in a poor state of repair. In 1860, slates and stone slabs had fallen off the roof, followed directly by the roof itself. Chequers Yard, behind the inn, was a coal yard, and contained notorious lodging houses, home to vagrants in a hopeless state of destitution and disease.
D. H. Coupe’s plans for the Chequers Inn was to demolish it and erect a new hotel on its site while retaining its old sign, one of its quarterings being the coat of arms of the old Lord of the Manor. However, he died in 1883 and the executors did not see their way to carry out the project, hence it remained in dilapidated condition.
Last days of the Chequers Inn, Cambridge Street. Image: Picture Sheffield
The area bordering old Sheffield Moor had become known as Moorhead, and when the town started its street improvements programme, the Chequers Inn owed its survival because it stood just above the point where New Pinstone Street cut through Coalpit Lane (Cambridge Street). The demolition of properties around it brought the Chequers into daylight again and a ‘somewhat out-at-elbows appearance’, and the inrush of light had proved so dazzling that the windows were boarded up and accentuated the poor condition of the public house. The uninhabited appearance meant that its days were numbered, and a report from this time stated that one of the old stock stones had fallen. It was a far cry from the days when writers had referred to the smart Chequers Inn with its grass plot facing the street, but in its last days that grassy plot had been used as a skittle alley.
T and J Roberts, milliners, had built a grand new shop at the corner of Cambridge Street and New Pinstone Street in 1882 and they purchased the Chequers Inn to construct a Cambridge Street extension in 1888.
Workmen who demolished the Chequers Inn came upon a stone lintel which bore coloured checks – blue, red, etc. – bright as the day it was painted. The sign had been papered over and above the lintel was the name of ‘Alsop’. Other stones laid bare had the date ‘1682’ carved into them. There is some mystery as to what happened to the old stones that had supported the stocks. Charlesworth Brothers, who built Roberts extension, stated that they had been used intact in the foundations of it, but a letter to the Sheffield Daily Telegraph claimed that a passer-by had bought them with the intention of presenting them to Sheffield for display in one of its parks.
Alas, the Chequers Inn disappeared and was quickly forgotten. T and J Roberts closed its shop in 1937 and the building survived until replaced by the 1960s concrete construction that was in turn demolished as part of the recent Heart of the City redevelopment.
T and J Roberts, Moorhead, with Cambridge Street to the right. 1885. Image: Picture Sheffield
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