Heinkel HE111 bombers in formation. The HE111 was the mainstay of the German Luftwaffe bomber force and bombed Sheffield in 1940.
It was a cold and clear Thursday night in December 1940. The skies were vibrating with the noise of German Luftwaffe Heinkel HE111 and Junkers 88 aircraft that had crossed over the sea from France. When they reached Sheffield, they dropped parachute bombs that descended at 40mph and exploded when they reached the level of the rooftops sending shockwaves over a wide area. They screeched as they fell, closely followed by thunderous explosions that could be heard right across the city. The streets were scenes of panic, fires raged, and the air was thick with smoke. Sheffield had experienced its first encounter with Hitler’s blitzkrieg, the psychological shock and resultant disorganisation through which the employment of surprise, speed, and firepower, was designed to weaken the city’s resolve.
One of the bombs dropped through the glass roof at the back of the Mappin Art Gallery, near Mushroom Lane. It obliterated three of the Mappin’s six galleries, and the shockwave caused major damage throughout the rest of the building, shattering almost every pane of glass, and destroying artefacts. The damage was inconceivable and when daylight came, only the facade, the front two galleries and the Graves Museum extension had survived; the rest of the building was deemed unsafe. Two days later, rain fell and added to the bleakness.
Afterwards, the remainder of the art collection was moved to two premises on the Duke of Devonshire’s estates in Derbyshire, outhouses of Edensor Vicarage and a pub in Pilsley. Meanwhile the shell of the two surviving Mappin galleries was used as a makeshift store, its gutted roof sheeted over.
A year later, the Illustrated London News reported that the Graves Art Gallery, above Sheffield’s Central Library, had opened an unusual exhibition. It consisted of pictures – paintings, watercolours and drawings – damaged in the air raid on Sheffield when they were hung at the Mappin Art Gallery. Some were in the condition in which they were found after the raid, some were restored completely and others only partly.
Grandmother’s Birthday Present by John Calcott Horsley. Damage to this picture was extensive and the linen backing can be seen where the original canvas had been stripped. Believed to have been destroyed.Image: British Newspaper Archive
Approximately 250 pictures were damaged by flying glass, bomb blast, or the rain which followed the raid before they could be collected and safely housed. The blast made crazy patterns on the varnish, flying glass caused cuts, some large, in the canvas, and the rain caused those pictures that had been re-lined to separate. But for all this it was hoped to restore between 80 and 90 percent of them.
A lot of the work in the Mappin Art Gallery had been bequeathed to the city by John Newton Mappin and later by Sir Frederick Mappin, and amongst the twenty-three works from the original collection which were totally destroyed were key works from like Dorothy Tennant’s The Emigrants and Darnby’s The Vale of Tempe; four of the most important donations made to the gallery, T.C. Gotch’s The Mother Enthroned, H.C. Selous’ The Crucifixion, Noel Paton’s Lux in Tenebris and G.F. Watt’s portrait of J.A. Roebuck; while some important works were so badly damaged that they weren’t repaired until the late 1980s, like Val Prinsemp’s To Versailles, and W.C. Horsley’s The French in Cairo. Among other damaged pictures were works by John Pettie, David Cox, John Phillip, Sir William Rothenstein, G.F. Watts, Dame Laura Knight, Wilson Steer, Orchardson, Sir John Gilbert, and Eric Gill. The total value of damage and loss was estimated at £6,300 by Professor John Wheatley, who had been appointed director of Sheffield Art Galleries in 1938.
Dogs by George Armfield. Showing the picture before restoration, covered with plaster and other debris. Shown at the Graves Art Gallery in 1941 and now believed to be lost. Image: British Newspaper Archive
The Farmyard by Barnet Freedman. An example of an oil painting showing damage by blast and glass splinters. This painting was later restored and remains in the Sheffield collection. Image: British Newspaper Archive.
War damage payments for the actual works of art destroyed or damaged turned out to be low, reflecting the low value placed on Mappin’s collection.
At the time of the 1941 exhibition between 60 and 70 raid-damaged pictures had already been restored, but it was estimated that the work of restoration would take two or three years to complete. Wheatley explained that Sheffield was reaping the benefit of having appointed in peacetime a practical assistant on the staff.
That person was Harry Frank Constantine (1919-2014), painter, restorer and curator, who had studied at Sheffield and Southampton Colleges of Art and at the Courtauld Institute. He was assisted by his daughter and was only then finding damage that hadn’t been apparent immediately after the raid. Paint loosened by the blast was beginning to flake off, and the greatest difficulty was with the large cuts in canvases, that were carefully drawn together, given a new backing, the cuts filled in with a composition, and the surrounding paint carefully matched.
Gallery One as it was from 1940 – 1962. Photograph taken in 1962
Constantine took over as director of Sheffield City Art Galleries in 1964 when only the Graves Art Gallery was open. Sheffield had received a major war damage reparation payment, but the ruins of the Mappin Art Gallery hadn’t been touched after the war ended. In 1960, auditors had investigated why the sum for war damage reparation hadn’t been spent, and questions were being asked by the Mappin family. Sheffield Corporation deemed that the rebuilding of the Mappin Art Gallery was low on the list of rebuilding projects, but reconstruction was finally approved in February 1963 and the gallery fully reopened in June 1965.
The Mappin’s Victorian painting collection had been substantially reduced when the building was bombed, and Constantine spent the rest of his career spotting acquisitions in salerooms and in deserted corners of commercial galleries that others had missed. When he retired in 1982, he’d built a reputable collection for the city, curated numerous exhibitions and ensured that the city’s galleries were accessible to everyone.
The Emigrants – 1886 – Dorothy Tennant (now destroyed)
Many thanks to Professor Michael Tooby and James Hamilton for invaluable information in collating this post.
It was a headline that dominated local newspapers in 1913 when it was threatened with demolition. It might also apply to now, with the army planning to end its one hundred and ten year ownership of the large Victorian mansion.
In 1914, with Britain on the brink of war, Endcliffe Hall was bought by the Hallamshire Rifles (4th Yorks and Lancaster Regiment) and although the unit was disbanded in 1968 it remains the regimental Headquarters of Army Reserve Unit 212 (Yorkshire) Field Hospital.
A recent planning application asked for works to be removed ahead of the sale of the house and land. It is believed that the removal of a large painting called ‘Entering Fontenay’ and two glass fronted display cases, including the one for the Royal Army Medical Corps flag would require listed building consent, as part of the ballroom wall would need to be altered to take the items out safely.
Endcliffe Hall in modern times. Note that the French-style tower roof was removed in the twentieth century. Image: Sheffield Star
What will happen to Endcliffe Hall when it is put on the market? This time around, demolition won’t be an option because it was Grade II* listed in 1973. I have an inkling that it might find a new life as a luxury hotel, although there might have to be extensions, thus increasing the number of rooms to make it viable.
Endcliffe Hall is referred to as Sheffield’s biggest mansion – ‘The House Beautiful’ as the Sheffield Daily Telegraph called it in 1893. It was built between 1863 and 1865 by Flockton and Gibbs for the industrialist John Brown for a reputed £100,000 (that is about £10.6m today).
John Brown was born in Favell’s Yard, Fargate, in 1816, a part of the town favoured by people in good position for residence. His father wanted to apprentice the fourteen year old to a linen draper, but John disagreed. “I want to be a merchant, because a merchant trades with the whole world.” He was apprenticed to Earl, Horton & Co, cutlery manufacturers, in Orchard Place, and eventually took over the business.
In 1844, Brown moved into steel production on Orchard Street and Furnival Street manufacturing railway springs and files. His invention of the conical spring buffer brought him incredible wealth and allowed him to open further factories on Holly Street, Hereford Street and Backfields. These were later consolidated into one site – Atlas Works – in Savile Street.
Adopting the Bessemer process, Brown was a pioneer of the armour making industry, deciding that hammered armour plating could be rolled instead, and would receive orders to protect about three quarters of the ships of the Royal Navy.
In 1856, Brown became a member of the Town Council, an alderman three years later, and Mayor in 1861 and 1862.
John Brown married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Schofield, and lived comfortably at Shirle Hill (now Nether Edge) but with immense wealth, wanted to build a magnificent mansion. In 1863, when the Endcliffe Hall estate went to auction, Brown bought it and demolished the old hall (the second to have stood on the site) and replaced it with a mansion in the Italian style, with free use of the French interpretation. The only relic to survive from the previous hall was a piece of quaint animal carving that was fixed over the fireplace of the principal kitchen.
In those days, the house stood in countryside. “The air is pure, from the best source, the high moors. A lofty range of hills rising behind this south-eastern aspect, forming a grand and imposing background, sheltering it from northern winds. A view of Sylvan Scenery in the valley of the River Porter, and the wood-crowned heights of Brinkcliffe Edge. The eye is carried through the lovely Vale of Whiteley Wood, up to the Moorlands of Hallamshire. There is a plentiful supply of the purest water and building materials from the ground.”
John Brown employed Flockton and Abbott to design and carry out the 36 room mansion almost regardless of cost, and those gentlemen succeeded in producing a building which, for perfect architecture, excellent workmanship, unique domestic arrangement, and appropriate accessories, could not be surpassed in the provinces.
Nearly 300 workmen had worked on it and the proportions of all the rooms were said to be magnificent, with a light and cheerful appearance, and a sense of perfect ventilation throughout. On completion, in 1865, the house was, on the invitation of the architects, opened over two days for inspection, and on each day crowds of leading gentry and merchants visited to see it for themselves.
Endcliffe Hall in all its former glory. Built between 1863 and 1865 by Flockton and Gibbs for the industrialist John Brown. Image: Picture Sheffield
John Brown was knighted in 1867, and there is a saying that money cannot buy happiness. In hindsight, one wonders whether John Brown and his wife were truly happy at Endcliffe Hall. A year later, Brown denied that he had sold the estate, the rumour fuelled by their desire to spend the winter months in Torquay, and only returning to Sheffield in the spring. Sir John and Lady Mary both suffered ill-health, and it is only during research for this post that we can now speculate that his ailments were due to his mental health.
In 1871, the John Brown Co had set up its subsidiary —the Bilbao River and Cantabrian Railway Company Limited— and bought plots in Sestao (Bilbao), Spain, to construct blast furnaces and process iron ore from the nearby Galdames mines they owned, which was to be transported by a factory owned railway they started building that same year. The railway was finished in 1876, and blast furnaces were completed in 1873. The political climate —the third Carlist War [1873-76] and its aftermath— are one of the reasons which motivated the company to abandon the blast furnace project and sell the installations to the Duke of Mudela —Francisco de las Rivas— in July of 1879. The second and more important reason for selling its processing plant was the fact that ore deposits in Galdames were significantly less than prospected. It was lamentable that Sir John’s career should have been so clouded owing to heavy losses in the Bilbao project.
Lady Brown died from a painful disease in 1881, and Sir John gradually withdrew from public life, his health deteriorated, and he spent increasing amounts of time in southern England. He left Endcliffe Hall for the last time in 1892 and two years before his death in 1896 had been declared legally insane.
Sir John Brown (1816-1896), KT, DL, Mayor of Sheffield (1861-1862)
Rumours circulated as to the future of the estate. Some suggested that it would remain in local hands, others speculated that it was being split up for building plots, while a third rumour suggested that the Duke of Norfolk might buy the house. Certainly, an enquiry was made but never followed up.
The sale of Endcliffe Hall had been put in the hands of London-based Maple and Co, and in January 1893 it offered Sheffield Corporation the chance to buy it for £70,000. The amount of money involved and uncertainty as to what to do with it meant that the corporation politely declined. Neither had there been any other offers for the estate.
Maple and Co sent the entire contents of Endcliffe Hall to auction in April 1893. “The best of furniture, the richest of appointments, the costly statuary, bronzes, pictures – the art treasures collected through many years – are to be scattered far and wide,” the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported. The contents raised between £9.000 and £10,000 and were believed to have been sold for about a third of their cost
“In local eyes it was the embodiment, in stone and lime, of a career unique even among merchant princes and manufacturers. Next week the beautiful home will be desolate; its costly contents, collected from all quarters, dispersed under the hammer, and no doubt not a few Sheffield families will in days to come treasure in their lares and penates some relic of the most complete and perfect amongst the many pleasant dwelling-places reared by the Men of Mark in our midst. Surely the goodliest habitation within our borders, its masonry fair of face as the day one stone was laid upon another, will not come down in the cutting up of the gardens and grounds, the terraces and parks, to make way for rows of villas to be raised by the speculative builder.” – Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Sat 15 April 1893
In July 1895, Endcliffe Hall and the estate went to auction at Nicholson, Greaves, Barber, and Hastings. It was bought for the knock-down price of £26,000 by a secret syndicate of eight local gentlemen. Their identity would later be revealed when the Endcliffe Hall Estates Company Limited was formed, with the directors named as Henry Herbert Andrew, J. W. Barber, Robert Colver, Robert Abbott Hadfield and William Samuel Laycock, with John Wortley as secretary. A large portion of the estate would be sold for building quality residences, but the future of the house remained in doubt.
The company adopted a scheme prepared by H.E. Milton, of Westminster, for laying out a new housing estate and plans were subsequently submitted to Sheffield Corporation for Endcliffe Grove Avenue, Endcliffe Park Avenue, and Endcliffe Hall Avenue.
Whilst grand new houses were built on parts of the estate, the Endcliffe Hall Estates Company used the mansion and remaining grounds as an entertainment venue. It operated between 1896 and 1913 and was used for meetings, ceremonies, dances, dinners, weddings, exhibitions, fetes, bazaars, and even as a location for several Shakespeare plays.
“The wealthy man of the West End desiring to invite his friends to dance, dinner, or concert, have turned to Endcliffe Hall as a place affording accommodation often superior to that available at his own house, and a place presenting many advantages over a hotel by reason of its privacy and its situation in the principal residential district of the city. He has been able to entertain a large party with as much success as if they were at his own home, and without subjecting himself to those little inconveniences and disturbances which he would have suffered if his own home had been used. All the worry of arranging rooms has been lifted off the shoulders of the host and hostess when they have gone to Endcliffe Hall.”
Like many large houses, the upkeep of Endcliffe Hall proved to be a problem for the company. Income from these events did not cover the upkeep of the house, and it attempted to close it in 1906, but met with opposition. Charles Burrows Flockton, from the well-known dynasty of Sheffield-based architects (which had designed the house), proposed setting up a company to purchase the hall and carry on as an entertainment venue or country club. In the event, the company chose to keep the hall and persevere, but failed to make it a success.
In 1913 it decided to sell the house and the remaining five acres of land that remained unbuilt, but with no buyers forthcoming, it proposed demolition. Once again, there was opposition and C.D. Leng, of the Sheffield Telegraph, campaigned to try and save it for the use of residents in the West End. He sent out thousands of circulars and reply postcards pleading for subscriptions to buy it. Leng decided that it would cost £60,000 to buy, and the whole place could be taken with a ground rent of £300. He proposed the addition of a stage in the ballroom for theatrical performances and there would also be room in the grounds for tennis, croquet and bowls.
Despite Leng’s efforts, the surveyor for the Endcliffe Hall Estates Company revealed that he had received an offer from another source. It was understood that the hall was going to be bought by solicitor Branson and Son on behalf of some Sheffield gentlemen who intended to retain it for public use.
It was actually a smokescreen because Colonel George Ernest Branson was commanding officer of the Hallamshire Rifles and wanted to transfer the officers and men from the cramped, ill-adapted, and inconveniently situated barracks at Hyde Park to Endcliffe Hall.
The purchase was approved at a meeting of the West Riding Territorial Association at York in January 1914 and cost £10,000 with the vendors agreeing to spend £2,000 on internal alterations and repairs, and the stables and coach houses were converted to become the drill hall for the regiment.
Of course, Britain would soon be at war, and during World War One, Endcliffe Hall was used as a hospital with eight indoor wards for 120 patients, and 32 beds in the ballroom. An open air ward was added on the site of the former conservatory.
Open Air Secton, 3rd Northern General Hospital, Endcliffe Hall annexe, World War I. The remains of the Grand Conservatory after the removal of glass to create an open-air ward. Image: Picture Sheffield
And so we come to the present day with the overall aim of the RFCA being “to sell the Endcliffe Hall site, including all land and buildings, thus bringing the Army’s 100 years of occupancy and ownership of the site to a close.”
“It’s not that I’m afraid of dying, but I’m more concerned that I might be forgotten.” These words seemed out of character for Thomas Wiley.
William Hollingworth sat in the drawing room at Claremont Place and realised that Wiley was sicker than he had realised, and that his friend was preparing himself for death.
“I’m quite certain that you will not be forgotten,” Hollingworth told him. “Besides, there are a lot of people who owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“I presume that you are referring to my family,” Wiley pondered. “I could not turn my back on them like they once did to me.”
“You never have told me why your father cut you adrift.” Hollingworth hoped that Wiley would finally reveal the cause of the rift.
“That is not important,” said Wiley, “But I vowed that I would make it on my own, and now that I am a rich man, I can provide them with financial support after they bankrupted my father’s drapery shop. I bear them no malice”
Hollingworth liked Alderman Wiley. On many topics he was the main source of information to multitudes; while to a more limited circle his sound and acute judgement made him an invaluable adviser. He did not allow sounding phrases to determine his opinions without the effort to think. He grasped firmly the subjects that came before him, subjected them to analysis, tested their evidence, and rarely failed to arrive at a well-grounded result. And yes, Wiley was a generous man and every Christmas he gladdened the hearts of old people by presents of blankets and seasonal fare. He had no children but had become a ‘father’ to the adopted orphans of several of his relatives.
A few weeks later, Hollingworth remembered that last conversation with Wiley. It was the day of the funeral and he had listened to the story of how Wiley had jumped out of bed, collapsed in a chair, and died at the age of 57. The surgeon had found that Wiley’s heart had been twice the size it should have been. The streets were lined with thousands of mourners as the cortege slowly made its way to St. John’s Church.
Haymarket looking down Waingate. Royal Hotel, right, Nos. 23 and 25 Wiley and Co. Ltd, wine and spirit merchants, Old No. 12 Arthur Davy and Sons Ltd., provision merchants, Court House (Old Town Hall), left. Image: Picture Sheffield
October 2024
The story of Thomas Wiley ended that day, but despite his fears, his name lived on for many years afterwards. Yes, he would eventually be forgotten, but by a quirk of fate, his story resurfaces 173 years later.
In September, local news reported that Sheffield City Council had stepped in with plans to demolish the frontage of No. 25, Wiley and Co, in Sheffield’s Haymarket. It referred to the century-old Tudor-inspired facade complete with wood and plaster mouldings, a turret, and a dragon perched on top. Five years ago, it gave developer Brijesh Patel permission to demolish the historic building behind and replace it with six storeys of studio apartments, on condition the façade was retained. Alas, the development hasn’t been completed and scaffolding has propped up the flimsy facade until it now poses a danger to the public. According to Hallamshire Historic Buildings, the developer and scaffolder are in dispute, and the latter wants its scaffolding back. Now the council says it must dismantle the building “while at the same time preserving as much of it as possible should the building’s owner wish to reinstate it at a later date, which we hope will be the case.”
Wiley and Co hasn’t been here for a long time, and although the Tudor frontage was believed to have been added in the 1920s, the demolished interior was understood to have dated to the early 19th century.
In 1832, Thomas Wiley removed to the Sun Tavern and Chop House at Old Haymarket, opposite the Tontine Inn coaching house. At considerable expense he fitted it up and advertised soups, steaks, chops, snacks served at a few minutes notice, as well as selling excellent old port, sherry, claret, champagnes, amber ale, London draught and bottled porter, prime Havana cigars, and London morning and evening papers.
Wiley added to his business of wine and spirit merchant, that of newsagent, a business in its infancy. At that time, Murdo Young, proprietor of the Sun newspaper, had broken new ground. He had begun to publish late editions of his paper, giving the Parliamentary debates up to post time. The excitement of the public mind throughout 1831 and 1832, caused by the reform agitation, aided his design, and the Sun, far outstripping its older rivals, became the favourite evening paper. On special occasions Young sent his papers by express to the principal towns of England. Wiley became his agent, and frequently brought down the express papers to Sheffield.
Ten years later, Wiley demolished the Sun Tavern and rebuilt it as Old No. 12.
“The design is new and exceedingly appropriate. The fault which has been found with many new shops on account of the disproportionate size and quantity of plate-glass is avoided here. The whole facade is in correct style; the capitals have been expressly modelled from a classic example, and substantially cast in iron. The window frames and doors are of Spanish mahogany, most beautifully executed; and the whole front is surmounted by an elegant balcony, in which the fruit and tendrils of the vine form the principal feature. Altogether, this front may be considered one of the most successful of its kind yet attempted; the architects are Weightman and Hadfield, and the contractors Alcock and Leesly.”
Old No. 12 became a Sheffield institution, not least for the inn, but for the adjacent wines and spirits business called Wiley and Co, and the fact that Wiley had also set up probably the town’s first newsagency.
“We observe with pleasure that Mr Wiley has long since parted with his pigeons, he would not suffer the public to be without authentic information on the Leger race; to effect, which, he sent his man from the course with a horse and gig, which arrived in Sheffield an hour and a half after the race was over, i.e. at five o’clock.” – Sheffield Independent – Sat 16 Sep 1843.
In the 1840s and 1850s, ‘Wiley’s Window’ was famous. In that window all the events of the day were chronicled – debates in Parliament, election results, deaths and disasters, all these occurrences which later formed the stock-in-trade of morning and evening newspapers. When rumours were rife on any subject, it was to Wiley’s window that the people flocked, quite sure that if anything had come through it would be posted up there. Wiley made great efforts to get his news, and it is said that more than once he ran special express coaches to London and back simply to have the first news of something of outstanding importance for his window.
“The great and popular rendezvous for all the superficial and some of the really thoughtful politicians is Mr Wiley’s Window, the well-known Old No. 12, Haymarket. We have much been pleased this week, during the Ministerial changes, as we have often been before, to see the peaceful grouping and pleasing excitement caused by the frequent and varied announcements which have been made in their proper and convenient order. As well as lounging and idle newsmongers, many an industrious tradesman and shopkeeper, and even families and females, in times of excitement, often derive their first knowledge of important commercial and national intelligence, by means of mornings or afternoon messengers despatched to Wiley’s Window.” – Sheffield Independent – Sat 4 July 1846.
He issued every year the ‘Sheffield and Rotherham Historical Pocket Almanac’. This was an invaluable book of reference, with local information for public bodies and institutions connected with the Borough. It was issued free of charge to all friends and customers at Old No.12. From this it seems that Thomas Wiley, in addition to the wine and spirit business, ran the newsagency, obtaining papers by coach, and later by railway, from all over the country and distributing them to subscribers in Sheffield, while local papers, which included the Sheffield Iris, Mercury, and Independent, the Doncaster Gazette, and Leeds Mercury, were on sale on the morning of publication.
Following Wiley’s death, the business was run by his widow for a short time before ending up in the hands of John Roebuck, a member of the Town Council until his death in 1867. George Trickett became the proprietor of Old No. 12 with his sons, Frederick and Francis, succeeding to the business of Wiley and Co. Francis served on the board of Tennant Brothers brewery when it acquired Wiley and Co in 1904.
Weaver to Wearer Ltd., tailors, No. 25 Haymarket with A. Davy and Sons Ltd. Cafe extreme right Image: Picture Sheffield
No. 25 Haymarket, plain early 19th century houses with elaborate applied half timbering, a bay window with leaded lights and a rustic bellcote added in the 20th century. Information from: Pevsner Architectural Guides Sheffield by Ruth Harman and John Minnis. Image: Picture Sheffield
Tennant Brothers were probably responsible for the reimagining of Wiley’s building in the 1920s and the introduction of its Tudor-inspired appearance.
Here onwards, Wiley and Co was known as the off licence business for Tennant Brothers, with branches across Sheffield and the north, but the name would disappear after the Sheffield-based brewery was bought by Whitbread in 1961.
Wiley and Co and Old No.12 disappeared and the building was used by a succession of shops before Haymarket’s decline led to the arrival of amusement arcades.
This afternoon (Sunday 29 September), a group of people will meet in a Sheffield city centre bar. There will be reunions, memories shared, but the event will have an air of sadness.. Friends and former work colleagues will see each other for perhaps the last time.
If things go to plan, one of those attending will be 85-year-old Keith Skues, the man responsible for giving us Radio Hallam, one of the UK’s pioneer commercial radio stations. It started broadcasting on 1 October 1974, and this coming Tuesday will be the fiftieth anniversary of its launch.
The irony is that its present owners, Bauer Media, chose its Golden Anniversary year to kill the name off – it is now Hits Radio South Yorkshire – but the spirit of the radio station, and its ability to be local, had disappeared many years ago.
Until the early 1970s, the BBC had the legal monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK. Except for Radio Luxembourg, and for a time in the 1960s, the offshore ‘pirate’ broadcasters, UK listeners had limited choice. Edward Heath’s Conservative government changed that and allowed the introduction of commercial radio to compete with BBC local radio services.
In October 1973, London Broadcasting Company (LBC) started broadcasting, closely followed by Capital Radio, and household names like Radio Clyde, BRMB, Piccadilly Radio, Metro Radio, and Swansea Sound. A year later came the launch of Radio Hallam from studios on the upper floors of the Sheffield Newspapers building at Hartshead with its strapline – ‘It’s nice to have a radio station as a friend.’
It beat off one other consortium for the franchise, but there was a merger after the licence had been issued. The Managing Director was Bill McDonald who at one time had worked for A.C. Nielsen rolling out overnight ratings for TV across the USA. He spent some years in New York in the early 1960s with a background in newspaper and commercial radio advertising but returned to England and the newspaper business and used his expertise to attract Radio Hallam shareholders including the S&E Co-op, B&C Co-op, Sheffield Newspapers, Trident Television (owners of Yorkshire Television), the Automobile Association, Kenning Motor Group and trade unions – USDAW and GMWU. The start-up cost for the station was £300,000 (about £3.9M today).
From the start, Radio Hallam’s strength was the ‘rebel’ disc jockeys it took from the BBC – Keith Skues as Programme Controller, Roger Moffat, Bill Crozier, and Johnny Moran, briefly joined later by Bruce Wyndham – and the emphasis was on professionalism. There had been another BBC staffer, Peter Donaldson, who was to have presented the afternoon magazine programme ‘Roundabout’ but got cold feet and left before the station launched. (Yes, it was THE Peter Donaldson, who became a BBC Radio Four icon).
“Whilst in London I formally approached Roger Moffat (returning a favour as it turns out), Johnny Moran, and Bill Crozier, and to my amazement they all agreed to leap into the unknown and come with me to Sheffield,” said Skues. “All the time I was holding auditions for local broadcasters. We received applications from over 700 hopeful Disc Jockeys, but I could only take three, all of whom had worked with BBC local radio.”
After only a few months, a dipstick survey suggested that Hallam had 25 percent of the audience, placing it second after Radio 2 with 26 percent and ahead of Radio 1 (24 percent) and BBC Radio Sheffield (19 percent).
“Ours is a complete mixture. We are going for anybody from 18 to 40 -olds, and we get lots of requests from 70 and 80-year-olds.”” said Keith Skues at the time.
The schedule was an easy listening mixture of hit 40 and middle-of-the-road pop during the day, heavier rock and jazz for students in the evening, with minority interest programmes slotted in at the weekend.
The Top 40 singles were based on local record shop returns (remember Bradleys?); another 40 LPs were chosen by seven disc jockeys and there were twenty new releases on the playlist. The first record after the news was always from the top ten; the second was between number 11 and 40; the third was a climber (new release); the fourth was an oldie (anything from five to fifteen years); the fifth was again between 11 and 40: and the sixth was an album track. The cycle was then repeated. And Skues said that it got very high ratings. “Where Hallam does seem to score is that we don’t do a lot of chat – there are no requests, no name checks even during the format hours.” Neither were there any phone-ins, although the idea had been considered.
BBC Radio Sheffield nicknamed it as the ‘pop and prattle station,’ but the former BBC presenters impressed with their individual personalities.
Keith ‘Cardboard Shoes’ Skues (Lunch with a Punch) was determined to get into radio from a young age. Roger Moffat let him attend live broadcasts of Make Way for Music with the Northern Variety Orchestra in Manchester, and recommended the Forces Broadcasting Service as a possible route into the profession. Skues took that advice a few years later when he was called up for his National Service and posted to British Forces Network (BFN) in Cologne. He returned to the UK in 1964 to join pirate station Radio Atlanta which then merged with Radio Caroline. He joined Radio Luxembourg for the CBS Record Show and presented on Radio London until 1967 and the introduction of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act. He was at the start of Radio 1 and remained with the BBC until leaving to set up Radio Hallam.
Keith Skues
Roger Moffat (what a bloody awful place Sheffield is) gave the station an air of irreverence: playing a blank tape after failing to interview a pop prima donna, telling the early morning disc jockey who phoned him with a live alarm call, ‘I don’t want a railway station as a friend’; deviating from the playlist, purporting to be the station’s Royal Correspondent, an obsession with ‘Royal Hackenthorpe’ and upsetting everyone whether they were a bus driver or Elvis Presley fan. He’d been sacked by the BBC three times, but was a storyteller, such a consummate one that while you never knew if it was true, it didn’t really matter.
Roger Moffat
Bill Crozier started with a middle-of-the-road late night show, ‘Cozier with Crozier’ and catered “for the old and lonely.” A distinctive figure in his opera-style cloak and his goatee beard, one of his trademarks was a twittering bird, Florence the Nightingale in the background. He also presented the evening request programme as the friendly host uncle. It came naturally to him for he had been the popular Cologne end of the BFN/BBC Two-Way Family Favourites programme with Jean Metcalfe from 1958 to 1965. After BFN, Crozier switched to the BBC’s Light Programme and Radio 2 which best suited his choice of music from the forties and fifties. He was also a producer of the Jimmy Young Show.
Bill Crozier
As breakfast show presenter, Johnny Moran was the first DJ heard on Hallam. His mother Phillis had emigrated from Sheffield, and now found himself in her home city via Radio Luxembourg and Radio One. Skues had re-established contact with Moran at a party given for the singer Barry White, and with his BBC career over, he’d been plying his trade for the British Forces Radio Network and was keen to make the switch. Famously, the first record he played on Hallam was Kiki Dee’s ‘I’ve Got the Music in Me’ that stuck after a couple of minutes.
Johnny Moran in Studio B. Image: Hallam Memories
Let us not forget Bruce Wyndham (because we have), a man with a theatrical background whose family had connections with the Wyndham Theatre in London. He joined the BBC in 1948 and remained until 1976 before tasting commercial radio with Radio 210 in Reading and Radio Hallam in 1978. “A lovely cheerful character who would always crack a joke at his own expense,” said Alan Biggs who had to report the death of his colleague after he’d collapsed and died at the station while preparing for a late night programme.
Bruce Wyndham
Aside from the BBC personalities, Radio Hallam would introduce other presenters during these golden years – Ray Stuart, Colin Slade, Kelly Temple, Brenda Ellison, Cindy Kent, Gerry Kersey, Dave Kilner, Dean Pepall, Howard Pressman and many more – and furthered the careers of future radio industry heavyweights like Ian Rufus, Stuart Linell, and Ralph Bernard.
Let’s not be mistaken for thinking that it was all about music because the early independent local radio stations had to be friends to everyone – including every music genre – and phonographic performance rules meant that they were restricted to the amount of needle time played on air. The gaps in-between were given over to talk content. Radio Hallam’s news was local, operating throughout the day, and into the night. One of its quirks was that it was at five minutes to the hour – three minutes to at weekends – allowing the station to play music when other radio stations were breaking for news.
There were feature programmes (Grapevine/Hallam Forum) and there were home-produced dramas like the five episodes of Dying for a Drink (1978) and Down to Earth – a story of coal and colliers (1979).
Roger Moffat at Radio Hallam. Photograph: Picture Sheffield
But things could not last.
“Roger Moffat had his ups and downs and in one of them he lost his temper with us and he went off,” said Bill McDonald. He left Hallam in December 1981, resurfacing two years later with a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio Sheffield. “This is your last chance, Moffat. Your last ditch.” According to who you believe, the programme was phased out after a few weeks, or was it two years? Regardless, he gave up the job because of ill-health. He returned to Radio Hallam one more time, to record his obituary programme that was broadcast after his death (aged 59) in 1986. His unusual last wish was fulfilled a year later when his ashes were scattered over three far flung locations. His former colleague and friend Keith Skues helped pilot a Piper Seneca to scatter the ashes over Skye, the Channel Islands… and the Sheffield suburb of Hackenthorpe.
Bill Crozier left Hallam in 1980 and returned south where he did freelance work for the BBC, but came back to Sheffield and lived at Bradway. He died in 1994, aged 69. He was replaced on the request show by Gerry Kersey who said that “He was a very gentle broadcaster who knew the art of using silence, more than anybody I know.”
Johnny Moran switched to afternoons in the mid eighties before leaving Hallam and working briefly for Magic 828 in Leeds, and then for Classic Gold in Bradford, before disappearing completely from public view. Believed to have settled in Devon and France, he died, aged 78, in September 2022.
That leaves one survivor from those ‘rebel’ BBC DJs, and this afternoon he will take centre stage amongst former colleagues
In 1986, Radio Hallam merged with two other radio stations – Viking Radio in Hull and Bradford’s Pennine Radio – to form Yorkshire and Humberside Independent Radio (later the Yorkshire Radio Network). The stations retained their local identity but shared programmes through the evening.
Keith Skues had reportedly become disillusioned after the merger and left to take up the role of programme controller for YRN’s Classic Gold service when it launched in May 1989. The takeover by Newcastle’s Metro Radio in October 1990 ended one of commercial radio’s longest partnerships, with Bill McDonald (in charge of YRN) retiring and Skues taking temporary leave as a reservist for the RAF in the Gulf War. When he returned in December he found that he had been sacked by the new owners.
With a twist of fate, Skues presented BBC Radio Sheffield’s afternoon show in 1991, and had a brief spell back on BBC Radio 2. He moved to the BBC in the Eastern Counties in 1995 presenting a weekday late night show (loved by the late John Peel), and in semi-retirement presented the Sunday late show for fifteen years until 2020.
“When I was 19 or 20 I was in the right place at the right time and, having reached 500 editions of the Sunday show, it’s perhaps the ideal opportunity to retire.”
He said recently that the proudest moment of his career had been the creation of Radio Hallam.
In 1991, the Metro Group retired Hallam’s Hartshead studios and moved everything to the unlikeliest of locations, former brewery offices at Herries Road.
Sometime before his hasty departure, Roger Moffat had a war of words in Hallam’s offices. “Moffat, you are a has been” said a young DJ. “Yes,” he replied. “But at least I HAS been.” That conversation might now refer to Radio Hallam itself.
Radio Hallam studio in 1975
Keith Skues presented his last show for the BBC in 2020
No.37 Fargate, a Victorian survivor. Image: DJP / 2025
If buildings could talk, they might be able to fill in the blanks. Like when this building was constructed, what the carvings on the outside mean, and might provide us with forgotten stories of the people who passed within its walls. It might also be dismayed to see Fargate as it is now.
This is No. 37 Fargate, with its grand Victorian (or might that be Edwardian) facade, home to T4, a Taiwanese tea store, which opened earlier this year, and ended a few years of abandonment.
The interesting thing about the building is that it is sandwiched between two newer constructions, and the last in this block to survive street improvements from the 1890s onwards. Look up the next time you pass, and you’ll see what I mean.
The likelihood is that it was built for one of Sheffield’s wealthy entrepreneurs who snapped up this sliver of land as part of the street widening programme and enjoyed the rents that the ground floor shop provided.
The Victorians turned Fargate into a shopping street, and prior to this, the site had been home to businesses including the Misses Innocents’ hosiery and fancy goods store, Singer’s Sewing Machines, Bagshawe Bros, bicycle shop, and a brief spell as an auction house.
T4 – a Taiwanese tea shop that opened in 2024. Image: DJP / 2024
The property was likely built in 1903-04, and taken by Bonnet and Sons, who installed mahogany fittings, and turned two long rooms into a high-class cafe.
The business, founded in 1880 by Swiss chocolatier Louis Bonnet, had other concerns in Bath, Bristol, Scarborough, and Bradford, and specialised in freshly made chocolate and all kinds of French confectionery, catering for the ‘best class of people’ who were prepared to pay a moderate price for the delicacies.
“Bonnet and Sons are preparing special novelty boxes filled with these sweetmeats. The cases, attractive in character, have been brought from Paris and Vienna, but are filled in Sheffield immediately before their despatch to a customer, with the result that the chocolate and fondants are quite fresh. They are just the kind that go to ornament the supper table at a party or are delightful as a dessert. They are typically French. Two dozen of these petits gateaux are put in the boxes to retail at two shillings. The best way to obtain an opinion is to visit Bonnet and Sons’ Cafe where, together with a cup of delicious tea, coffee, or chocolate, the confectionery can be enjoyed.” – Sheffield Independent – November 1905.
The cafe closed in 1912, as eventually did the other branches, except for Scarborough, where astonishingly, the business survives under different ownership as Bonnets on Huntriss Row.
Between 1912 and 1922, the building was the Sheffield outpost for Van Ralty Studios, owned by Harry Wolff, a portrait photographer, with studios in Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Oldham, and Bolton. Its work continues to be popular, the vintage postcards and photographs eagerly sought by collectors.
There are a couple of images in Picture Sheffield’s extensive collection that shows No. 37 Fargate belonging to H.E. Closs and Company, silk merchants. This was Harold Edward Closs’s first shop, but he quickly expanded with branches across the country. His buyers visited the Continent to choose the latest modes of colour and design, providing its shoppers with the latest silk fashions. It ceased trading in the 1930s, and Harold Closs set up a new business with Cyril Hamblin and still trades in the southeast as Closs & Hamblin (formerly C&H Fabric Specialists).
Unidentified royal visit passing Fargate, possibly Elizabeth, Queen Mother, 1934, shops include Nos. 41 – 43 J.B. Eaton Ltd., drapers and Marsh Brothers (Electricians) Ltd., No. 37 H.E. Closs and Co. Ltd., silk merchants, No. 35 Yates and Henderson. Image: Picture Sheffield
Next into No.37 was Thomas Cook, the travel agents, which turned out to be the building’s longest occupant, remaining here until its dramatic collapse in 2019. Although acquired by Hays Travel it closed soon afterwards.
Fargate always liked its eateries, but these gave way to shops during the latter part of the twentieth century, but, as one historian told me, history has a habit of repeating itself, with Fargate earmarked for leisure and hospitality.
No. 37 Fargate starts a new chapter as T4, its chrome and glass interior far removed from the days when Bonnet and Sons charmed the folk of Sheffield with fancy chocolates and cakes.
No.37 Fargate. With elaborate carvings at higher level. Image: DJP / 2025
“I’ll miss it,” said the man with the flat cap and a Woodbine hanging from the corner of his mouth. “This is all we’ve known.” He patted the head of a snotty-nosed boy wearing hand-me-downs, who stood eating bread and dripping. The boy wiped his nose on the sleeve of a jacket that was too small because it belonged to Frank in the next yard who was taller and died of measles at Easter. The boy is pining for his dog called Major that ran away when the demolition men came. “When he comes back, he won’t know where we’ve gone,” he wailed.
“Look at it,” the flat cap man said. ”Street after street is being swept away, and with them go all the houses, shops, and pubs. All we’re left with are empty churches because the people have gone. The area looks like a man’s teeth have decayed, and only the black stumps remain. It’s being left to rats and rubble.”
But the flat cap man and the snotty-nosed boy had forgotten that these were the poorest and darkest parts of Sheffield. These sinks of the city were overcrowded, filthy, foetid, and dangerous. This was where whole families shared one room and everybody in the yard pissed and shit in the same toilet bowl. This was where overcrowding and industrial pollution spread sickness and disease. These were the houses where people couldn’t live anymore. Where gangs still ruled, and the sloping cobbled streets had become lawless. This was the poverty stricken north, where other classes dare not wander.
******
In the 1930s, Sheffield had a five year plan to pull down 7,000 houses and transport 30,000 people to new council estates. It was interrupted by war, and it wasn’t until 1955 that the council resumed its slum clearance programme with new council houses – ‘a boon to a rising generation’. Then came the flats, because housing wasn’t spreading out anymore, it was going up, and so did the rents.
These remarkable photographs of Sheffield’s slum clearance in the 1960s were taken by Robert Blomfield (1938 – 2020), a family doctor who practised in Wrexham and then Hebden Bridge. At the age of thirteen, he started using his father’s Leica camera, showing a natural flair for photography.
Born in Leeds, Robert grew up in Sheffield where his grandfather, a keen amateur photographer, developed his photographs in a make-shift darkroom in the family home. Robert often helped him, and his passion for photography grew, but he never had the ambition to take it up professionally.
From early on he admired the two great French photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, whose work challenged him to see more (and be seen less) with the cameras he carried with him everywhere – initially the small Leica borrowed from his father, later a pair of Nikons.
In those days Robert was using black and white film, taking images of Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and London, and did all his own developing and printing. Most ended up in storage boxes and only became known in his later years.
“I didn’t need to set the stage. The stage set itself” – Robert Blomfield
New flats rise on Upperthorpe Road. 1960s. Image: Robert Blomfield
Carmel House, at the top of Fargate, is one of Sheffield’s finest buildings, an example of Victorian architecture that survived when much of it was lost. But appearances can be deceptive, and what is behind that elegant facade is entirely twenty-first century. In 2004, the guts of Carmel House were ripped out, replaced with a steel framework, and all that remains of this Grade II listed building is the frontage (like recent redevelopment works on Pinstone Street).
It was built in 1889-91 to designs by Sheffield architect Herbert Watson Lockwood, the subject of last week’s post. Younger readers might be surprised that this was built for the Young Men’s Christian Association, on two plots of land between the then ‘newly built’ Yorkshire Penny Bank, and the offices of Alfred Taylor, solicitor, on Norfolk Row.
Prior to this, the Sheffield YMCA had cramped rooms on Norfolk Street, but the membership had soared to above 300. It was fortunate to have as its president, Emerson Bainbridge, who wanted to build purpose built facilities. He battled with the Prudential Assurance Company to buy two plots of land, eventually securing the freehold of both in 1888 for £16,000 (including £7,000 out of his own finances), and forming the Association Buildings Company Ltd to raise capital for its construction. (The Prudential would eventually build its offices at the corner of Pinstone Street and St Paul’s Parade).
The building of the YMCA wasn’t without problems.
Work started in August 1889, delayed due to a dispute with Alfred Taylor who was paid compensation for his right to light. Then, while the site was being excavated, it caused subsidence to the adjacent Yorkshire Penny Bank. There was another blow in December 1889 with the failure of its builder, William Bissett and Sons, and work came to a halt. It was picked up in 1890 by Armitage and Hodgson, the Leeds-based builder of the Yorkshire Penny Bank next door.
It was finally completed in May 1891 and opened a month later.
The YMCA had a frontage of 135 ft, and an average height of 54 ft, faced with Holmfirth Stoke Hall stone. It was hand finished with open arcading, above which were lofty gables, the style being late-Gothic, of a Flemish type, the straight portion of the front flanked by projecting oriel windows, carried up two storeys,
Sheffield Young Men’s Christian Association, Fargate, Sheffield, 1891.
The principal entrance was at the corner of Norfolk Row, with a wide arched doorway over which was a stone balcony, having in the centre a panel inscribed ‘One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.’
“Symbols of the four evangelists are carved in the corbelling to the balcony over the entrance, six arched panels on the curved portion of the front depicting the six days of Creation and in four other panels the progress of Divine Law from its delivery on Sinai in the two tablets, its development as the scrolls of the law and its completion in the form of the Bible, finishing with a crowned shield bearing on its field the Star of Bethleham. The shields in the main cornice bear the arms or signs of the twelve Apostles. All is by Frank Tory.”
Over the entrance was a handsome projecting lamp carried on a bracketed and enriched wrought iron hoop.
The new premises had six shops on the ground floor, which brought in rental income of about £850 to £975 each year.
Let us now consider its original and lost interior.
From the entrance was a broad flight of stone steps leading to the entrance hall, which was lit from above by a rich stained glass ceiling light, made by Mansfield and Co, of Gresley, near Burton-on-Trent. The floor was laid out with mosaic to a sunflower design.
On the right was the secretary’s office, platform entrance to the hall, and a staircase leading to the assembly hall, a well-lit room about 60 ft long, 30ft wide, and 21 ft high, fronting to Fargate. At one end was the public gallery, with a curved front of pitched pine, relieved with arches and octagonal shafts. At the other end was the platform, and over it a private gallery, serving partly as a sounding board, and made of pitch pine and polished walnut.
In the centre, opposite the entrance, was a large bay filled in with a painted window, representing Christ blessing little children, and presented by Emerson Bainbridge. This, along with all the coloured windows had been manufactured by Lazenby Stained Glass Works at Leeds.
The hall seated 250 people, but held 300, exclusive of the two galleries that held 100 more.
YMCA Assembly Hall, Carmel House, Fargate. Image: Picture Sheffield.YMCA Fargate, the Theatre. This is not mentioned in the original design notes. Possibly a later alteration. Image: Picture Sheffield.
To the left of the hall entrance was the corridor to the gymnasium, the principal staircase, and inquiry office. The gymnasium was 44ft long, 35 ft high, and was kitted up by George Heath of Goswell Road, London. At one end was a public gallery, behind which were the dressing rooms, lockers, and bathrooms. The whole of the floor was covered iron and concrete, covered with Lowe’s patent wood block flooring in pitched pine.
On the mezzanine floor were the honorary secretaries’ rooms and toilets. From this floor, a stone staircase, with covered ceiling, and lit by stained glass windows, rose to a second floor, on which, fronting Fargate, were the library and writing room, fitted with walnut bookcases, meeting room, reading room, annexe, parlour, and refreshment room. At the back were storerooms and caretaker’s house, each communicating with each floor by a hand powered lift.
On the top floor were rooms for the junior department, classrooms and bedrooms.
The dull polished dark oak furniture was supplied by Johnson and Appleyard and consisted of settees and easy chairs, covered in saddlebags, and chairs and curtains in the main rooms upholstered in crimson Utrecht velvet.
YMCA Fargate, Billiard Room. Possibly a later addition to its facilities. Image: Picture Sheffield.
The YMCA remained here until the late 1960s, by which time the building, in a prime city centre location, proved too big for its dwindling membership. It moved to smaller headquarters at Broomhill in 1970.
The building’s interior was probably gutted at this stage, redefined as offices, and I hope that somebody will confirm whether this is what happened.
At which point the building became known as Carmel House is uncertain, but the word ‘Carmel’ can be characterised by an awareness of God’s presence in a person’s heart, a sense of the sacred, and a desire for things divine.
As with most Victorian buildings, they can look incredibly attractive, but what lies behind is often unsuitable for twenty-first century use. In 2004, planning permission was granted for the complete redevelopment of the site, including demolition of everything behind the stone facade.
The following year, an important discovery was made during excavations for its new foundations. A medieval well was found on the site, as well as ancient pots and jugs, and possibly dug around the same time as Sheffield Castle was rebuilt in stone about 1270.
Sheffield District Y.M.C.A., Carmel House, Fargate, shops include Nos. 53 – 55 Robert Hanbidge, ladies outfitter. 1900-1919. Image: Picture Sheffield.Carmel House. November 2005. The facade of the former YMCA building is supported by scaffolding while its interior is reconstructed to modern designs. To the left is the former Yorkshire (Penny) Bank. Image: Flickr/SheffDaveGhost doorway. Former Norfolk Row entrance to the upper floors of the Young Men’s Christian Association building. Pictured here in 2022. Image: DJP / 2022.
Carmel House. Fargate, Sheffield. Built for the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1891. Only the facade remains from Herbert Watson Lockwood’s original design. Image: DJP / 2022
Sheffield had fine architects, and the name of Herbert Watson Lockwood should be amongst them. He was responsible for the Young Men’s Christian Association Buildings on Fargate (known to us as Carmel House), the Pupil Teachers’ Central Schools on Holly Street, Ruskin House Training Home for Girls at Walkley, as well as churches and school buildings.
Born at Derby in 1853, he was the son of Jonathan Lockwood, a staunch methodist, and educated at Sheffield Royal Grammar School before training as an architect and surveyor. He practised in Sheffield for twenty five years, first on York Street, then Church Street, and finally at Palatine Chambers on Pinstone Street. His reputation amongst his fellows was such that he became a fellow of the Sheffield Society of Architects.
In 1891, Lockwood submitted plans for the competition to build the new Town Hall but failed to make the shortlist. According to The Builder, his plans were superior to Edward William Mountford’s winning design. A couple of years later he was amongst a group from Sheffield which visited the Chicago World’s Fair.
Lockwood’s biography appeared in Sidney Oldall Addy’s Sheffield at the Opening of the Twentieth Century, published in 1901, and, aged forty-eight, he was at the top of his game.
In 1903, Lockwood became a director of Ellis and Webster Ltd, general merchants, with premises on St Paul’s Parade. The company had started in 1901 as a partnership between two jewellers, Evenio Ellis and Robert F. Webster, but Ellis left when it became a limited liability, leaving Lockwood to become its chairman.
The fortunes of Ellis and Webster make painful reading, and it was soon apparent that the company was struggling. Lockwood had agreed his fees at £90 per annum but received nothing. With property worth £4,000, he advanced a similar sum to the business and guaranteed, along with other directors, trade accounts and bank overdrafts amounting to £5,156.
In 1905, Lockwood raised securities to partially pay off his bank overdraft but a year later realised that he was insolvent. It didn’t stop him providing guarantees on debts contracted by Ellis and Webster amounting to a further £200.
Inexplicably, by the time he was declared bankrupt in 1908, it was apparent that Lockwood hadn’t paid any attention to his architectural practice for three years. His liabilities were £5,579, and assets of £96, with his own debts amounting to £4,598 (that’s about £693,000 today). The judge at his hearing said that it was, “The supreme folly of a gentleman in a good position as an architect financing a business of which he knew nothing and being led into bankruptcy.”
Lockwood lost everything, but what happened afterwards is subject to speculation. The official receiver had been negotiating with Lockwood’s relatives in America and his creditors settled by the end of the year.
It was almost certain that salvation came from his brother, Arthur James Lockwood, who, aged twenty-one, had travelled to Buffalo, New York, as an apprentice at Arthur Balfour, and had risen to become chairman of several steel concerns.
Herbert Watson Lockwood
As for Herbert Watson Lockwood himself, he disappeared from public view. The 1911 census records him as an architect and surveyor, working from the old family home at 17 Winter Street.
But his reputation was ruined, and four years later, we find that Lockwood had moved to the United States to be with his brother, living in Essex County, New Jersey. Alas, the date of his death remains a mystery, but I’m sure that somebody will be able to provide this missing detail.
Remember Herbert Watson Lockwood the next time you walk up Fargate, and see his surviving legacy to the city, from a man destined by circumstances not to succeed.
The sun shines, and a pigeon meanders between the old church gates near Sheffield Cathedral, next to the tram stop where High Street meets Church Street. It pays more attention to the gates than passers-by do, the majority of whom don’t know that they exist. These gates appeared in the nineteenth century and today I must use my imagination.
I have gone back to the time when these streets were crowded with pedestrians who had to keep their eyes open, and their wits about them, because they might easily have been run down by a horse and cart or Hackney Carriage. The air is abundant with noise, the clip-clopping of horses, hawkers selling their wares, and shouts of men who have consumed too much ale. Most people are shabbily dressed because they come from poor families, but there are also the gentlemen who wear breeches and stockings, waistcoats and frock coats, linen shirts, buckled shoes, and three-cornered hats. One of them carries a walking cane and pauses to read something that has caught his eye in the Sheffield Register. .
I am outside the Town Hall, built to the points of the compass in 1700, and which partly lies within the graveyard of Sheffield Parish Church and out into Church Lane. The man with the newspaper notices and walks over.
“What are you looking at?” he asks curiously. “I believe I am looking at Sheffield’s first Town Hall,” I reply. “Nay lad. That’s where you’re wrong. Let me tell you that there was one before this, up yonder, in a house near the Townhead Cross. It was a house converted for town affairs, and in its cellars were chains to keep hold of the misplaced souls of this parish. They built this one at the turn of the century to replace it.” The man looks at it and sighs. “It’s a miserable place. When the street was widened, I would have expected this building to be taken down, but it still stands as a disgrace to Sheffield.”
The stranger identifies himself as William Hollingworth, a solicitor on Norfolk Row, and he is right. The building is not grand like Town Hall’s should be, it is far too small, and built of plain brick with iron palisaded windows. Its northeast corner is separated by a narrow space from the southwest corner of Mr Heaton’s shop. Across this space, that I know as East Parade, the Church Gates have been placed diagonally. The long east front looks down High Street; the southeast corner and the short south side project into Church Lane, while the west and north sides are entirely in the church yard.
Hollingworth pointed his cane at the roof. “The only redeeming feature is the belfry, with its gilded ball, and the bell that is only rung on important occasions.”
He guided me up a flight of steps and stopped. “There is talk that we might build a new Town Hall over at Barker’s Pool, but that is too far away. My own preference would be to build one in the historic town, perhaps Waingate or Old Haymarket.” “What was here before?” “Nowt, as far as I know, but there used to be a well hereabouts, and that would have been filled in when they dug out the foundations.”
Hollingworth reached into his pocket and pulled out a large brass key to open the wooden door. He guided me into an ante room and closed the door behind him. Above us, far too high to reach, were leather buckets sat on shelves. “You’ll find similar ones in the church,” he said. He rested his cane against the wall, reached for a long pike and lifted one of them down. “Do you know what these are?” I had no idea. “Mr Rollynson made them. Before we had the town fire engine these buckets were used to fight fires. I’m afraid that they were no use because flames worked quicker than any man could.”
The door ahead was ajar and creaked as he pushed against it, opening into one large room, plain in décor, lined with rickety chairs, and a long mahogany table covered in green baize at its centre. The floor was covered with braided matting, well-worn, and fraying at the edges. It was gloomy, the windows struggling to let in enough light, with curtains, urgently in need of fresh dye, hanging either side. A candlestick was suspended from the ceiling, the candle long extinguished and a flow of cold wax could be seen. “This can be a jolly room. On special occasions we set tallow candles in clay and put them in each window.”
At the opposite end of the room, raised on a platform, was an impressive chair with a coat of arms fixed to the wall above it. Hollingworth noticed my interest. “That is the Royal Arms,” he said. “James Truelove did the iron work and Jonathan Rutter gilded and painted them.”
I sat in the chair that was hard and uncomfortable but suggested that somebody important might sit here.
“When it first opened, the Trustees said that the Town Hall could only be used by the town’s Burgesses to meet and consider the Collector’s accounts and keeping of the Courts of the Lord of the Manor.” Hollingworth laughed. “That didn’t last long because Yorkshiremen have regard for money. The temptation was irresistible. Before long, it was let to stage players, to Richard Smith, the bookseller and dancing expert, who rented it for weeks, to all kinds of showmen, and is popular for auctions. Now, the West Riding Sessions are held here every two years, and the magistrates sit in Petty Sessions once a week.”
“What is in that big chest under the window?”
Hollingworth tapped the chest with his walking cane. It was padlocked. “This is the ‘Town’s Chest’,” he said. “Inside is the true copy of the Town’s Burgesses’ grant to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, for him, his heirs, and successors, and the keeping of the Courts belonging to Sheffield. There is a smaller wooden box inside that contains a note from Henry, Duke of Norfolk, to the Burgesses. Alas, I have yet to see the contents.”
I hadn’t noticed the narrow stone steps that descended into blackness below. Hollingworth pointed and summoned me to follow. “Careful as we go. These steps are slippery underfoot.” He stooped as we went down into a narrow passage.
The stench here was unbearable, a mix of piss and shit, and there was no light except for a shaft of daylight that came from a grate set high in the wall. My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and I saw that there were three huge wooden doors, two open and one closed.
“Look for yourself,” said Hollingworth, and I cautiously looked through one of the open doors. It was a small cell, about eight feet square and barely six feet high, and through it ran a gutter, the source of the unimaginable smell.
Hollingworth rapped his cane against the closed door and peered through a hole that had been cut into it. “See for yourself.” He moved aside to let me look. I thought that it was empty but then I saw movement on the floor, a hunched figure that lay on the stone slabs. “A vagabond!” Hollingworth cried. “The sessions were held yesterday, and this person will be spending a night or two before Sam Hall frees him or sends him on his way to Wakefield.”
I asked who Sam Hall was. “He’s the town constable, amongst other things – beadle, cutler, and now a dealer in china and glass. Upstairs is called Sam’s Parlour, and he earns sixpence for crying the meetings. But he’s not too proud of his official position to eke out a living selling earthenware in the weekly pot market outside.”
We retraced our steps and outside the smell of horse dung was welcome relief to the despicable cells. “A week or so ago, there were stocks here, but we have moved them to where Hick’s Field used to be. They are calling it Paradise Square now, but it’s farther from the town, and punishment is served better. There are too many do-gooders around these days.”
NOTE:
Poetic licence has been used here. William Hollingworth never existed. Had such a meeting taken place then this would have been in the 1790s.
His comments are fictional, while others came from Robert Eadon Leader and a later gentleman called Fred Bland. “When the street was widened, I would have expected this building to be taken down, but it still stands as a disgrace to Sheffield,” was uttered by the historian Joseph Hunter.
Little is known about Sheffield’s ‘first’ Town hall and no sketch exists as far as I am aware. The little we do know is included here.
The last important meeting held in the building was in the 1807 County of York parliamentary election when two of the three candidates – William Wilberforce and Charles Fitzwilliam, Lord Milton – made speeches. The third candidate who fought unsuccessfully for one of two seats was the Hon. Henry Lascelles and the election was called the great struggle between the Houses of Wentworth and Harewood.
The ‘second’ Town Hall was built at Waingate in 1808, enlarged in 1833, and again in 1867. It subsequently became the Crown Court and is currently empty and in dire condition.
Our ‘third’ and grandest Town Hall opened in 1897.
Former Post Office, Stock Exchange, and Bank. Haymarket/Commercial Street, Sheffield. Image: S1 Artspace.
In the early hours of Sunday 19 March 1871, workers at Sheffield Post Office completed an important task. At 1.30 in the morning, business was transferred from its old Market Place site to a new Post Office at Haymarket. Forty-five minutes later, the first mail was despatched south, and moments later, a Sheffield lady posted the first letter here, and its destination was Doncaster.
I wonder what these folk would think about the state of the Post Office now – poor service, scandals, and tarnished reputation. They would also be disheartened at the state of this former branch, decaying and empty since Yorkshire Bank abandoned it over a decade ago.
The good news is that the Grade II listed building has been sold to S1 Artspace to become an arts and cultural venue. Once completed, it will feature spacious public galleries across two floors, artist studios, a community and events space, research centre, shop, and an independent bar. The facility will be a neighbour to Harmony Works at Canada House, which is to be a £14m music education hub.
Until then, we must look back 153 years to the time when it was one of Sheffield’s most desirable properties. Built in a particular class of the Grecian order of architecture known as the Doric, the front Hollington stone elevation rose to three stories. It was designed by James Williams (1824 – 1892), who entered H.M. Office of Works in 1848 and was later appointed the first Surveyor for the construction of Post Offices until 1884. It was built by Neil and Son of Manchester.
“At present it is at its best – clean, and fresh of face. Sheffield smoke will soon set its mark on the refreshingly white freestone and bring it into disagreeable harmony with surrounding blackness. We are afraid that the ‘deeply rusticated’ work will not be so pleasantly conspicuous when the badge of Sheffield industry settles down upon its fair face. In point of external beauty, it is certainly no ‘romance in stone and lime’.” These words from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph on the day after it opened.
The newspaper was less impressed with the diminishing look of the left hand side of the building, but there was a reason behind this, the entrance here leading to upper rooms that were given to the Inland Revenue, its purpose to give the public the idea that it had no connection with the Post Office.
Later alterations hid the designation of the building – ‘Post Office’ – cut into the stone, and the original layout has been obliterated over the decades.
Customers entered from Old Haymarket, ascending stone steps, through a massive door into a vestibule, with their feet upon an iron grating, answering the purpose as a ‘scraper’ to take mud off their boots.
A folding door led into the public office, 33 ft long by 30ft wide, with two mahogany counters carried along the entire length of the room on either side. The floor was made of stone, and close to the counters were hollow conduits, their purpose being for rainy days and in winter, when people brought in wet umbrellas, or were themselves dripping, or shaking the snow off their garments, the water instead of standing in pools on the floor, would find its way into the channels and be carried off.
The walls and ceiling were plain, the only speciality being the plaster dentelli cornice. There were five massive windows – three at the side, and two in front, with glass inserted into the doors. By night, gas light was issued from six pillars fixed on the counter. It was heated by two fireplaces, of which the mantelpiece and supports were in dark Italian marble known as ‘St Ann’s’.
The sorting office was separated by a screen and extended to 80ft long and 30 ft wide, with a lantern-light roof supported on iron columns, running parallel with the ‘new road’ to the Midland Station – this would become Commercial Street.
It contained two stamping tables, with vulcanised India-rubber laid in stone, large mahogany ‘facing’ and ‘sorting’ tables, and compartments covered with kamptulicon and separated by trelliswork in brass. Unheard of now, were ‘bag horses’, brass rings placed on iron pillars, from which bags were suspended, twenty-six to each horse.
It had originally been intended to house the Sheffield Postal Telegraph Department in the rooms above the Post Office, but an oversight meant that the space available would have been smaller than its existing office in The Shambles. The Inland Revenue also found its accommodation too small and moved out a few months later, allowing the telegraph department to finally make the move.
By 1900, the Post Office was itself inadequate, and additional offices were built in Flat Street and all that remained in the Haymarket was public counter work and the telegraphic department. When a new Post office was built in Fitzalan Square in 1909, the building was vacated and served as the Sheffield Stock Exchange from 1911 before becoming a branch of the Yorkshire Bank in 1967.
Old General Post Office, Haymarket, from Fitzalan Square with (right) Commercial Street. Image: Picture Sheffield
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