Tag: Sheffield

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Buildings

Vista

Work will start shortly on “Vista”, a 16-storey student tower block on a plot of land between Flat Street and Pond Street.

Sheffield Council approved a plan by Langland Estates to redevelop the entire former Head Post Office site in September 2015. Refurbishment of the listed buildings is complete, including the old post office which is now Sheffield Hallam’s Institute of Arts.

Langland’s initial aim was to build up to 22 storeys, but this was brought down to 16 two years ago after talks with the council’s planning department.

The development has now been bought by Liverpool-based Mount Property Group which is aiming to complete construction for the September 2021 academic year. The approved scheme is for 241 “student units” with ground floor reception, study lounge, coffee shop and bike store.

It is Mount’s first project in Sheffield, and will use its own building subsidiary, Mount Construction.

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Buildings

Stone House

Let’s not dwell too much on the recent history of the Stone House pub on Church Street. Famous in the seventies and eighties as the must-go-to bar on a Saturday night, and memorable for the courtyard that gave you the impression that you were standing underneath a star-filled sky.

The courtyard disappeared in the 1980s after the building of Orchard Square, the Stone House refurbished as a trendy establishment that lasted until 2005.

It was bought by the owners of Orchard Square, London & Associated Properties, for £2.5million, space given for the expansion of T.K. Maxx, and the older, listed part, left empty.

It’s a sad time for this Grade II-listed building, seemingly unloved, and not likely to attract a new tenant soon.

There is some confusion as to the date when the Stone House was built.

A band inscribed across the front states “1795, White & Sons, late Thomas Aldam.” But, the two-storey building we see today dates from the 1840s.

Over the doors, round-arched panels are inscribed with “The Stone House” and “Private Lodgings.”

Thomas Aldam, an importer of wines and spirits, moved here in the 1840s, continuing until his death in 1858.

The business was taken over by Dunkelspiehl Brothers & Company in 1867, trading from the site until the late 1870s.

The business transferred to J.B. White and Sons; an old Chesterfield company that had been established in 1795 (hence the date seen on the building today).

The name of the Stone House first appeared in 1913 following the acquisition of J.B. White and another Sheffield wine merchant, William Favell and Company, by brewer Duncan Gilmour and Company.

The two companies became White Favell and Company, wines and spirits merchants and cigar importers, operating in the front of the building. More importantly, the rest of the building became the Stone House public house.

White Favell and Company was later run by J. Lomax Cockayne, the managing partner in what became White, Favell and Cockayne.

Duncan Gilmour and Company was taken over by Leeds-based Tetleys in 1954, the wines and spirits business gradually being phased out and part of its old windowed frontage bricked up.

An illustrious past for the building, now waiting for a new lease of life.

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Places

River Don

It is the lifeblood of our city, the reason Sheffield’s industrial status grew, but what do you know about the powerful River Don?

The source of the River Don is high up on the Peak District Moors, on Great Grains Moss, near Holme, West Yorkshire, a trickle of a stream that grows as it flows through a series of reservoirs that supply water to the Calder Valley.

From here, it flows near to the Woodhead Tunnel, through Dunford Bridge and onto Penistone, where it is joined by Scout Dyke. Onwards it flows towards Deepcar, where the Little Don River (or River Porter, not to be confused with Porter Brook) spills into it.

Ewden Beck joins near Wharncliffe Side, and by the time it flows past Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium, it is a force to be reckoned with.

The River Loxley flows into it near Penistone Road, before widening and flowing towards Neepsend, Kelham Island, Lady’s Bridge, joined by the Porter Brook and the River Sheaf, onwards to The Wicker, Norfolk Bridge, Attercliffe, Meadowhall and Tinsley.

After Sheffield, the River Don continues through Rotherham, Mexborough, Conisbrough, Doncaster and Stainforth, eventually joining the River Ouse at Goole. This wasn’t always the case, because it originally joined the River Trent, and was re-engineered by Cornelius Vermyden as the Dutch River in the 1620s.

During the Industrial Revolution, mighty industries used the River Don, building a series of weirs used to power mills, hammers and grinding wheels.

But industry was also its downfall.

By the late 1800s, the councils of Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster were concerned at the amount of pollution being deposited into the Don. They talked about the problem but were powerless at stopping the river choking to death.

In 1920, a correspondent to the Sheffield Telegraph said the river had only one redeeming feature.

“No person, temporarily or permanently insane, would ever commit suicide in it. Here, perhaps a century ago, was a smiling, healthy valley, and now look at it. And they call this kind of thing progress?”

In May 1937, Alfred Short, the Doncaster Labour MP, said that when he was a boy in Sheffield, he had often heard the older citizens describe the beauty of the River Don when salmon and trout were to be caught. But he lamented on the state of the river.

“From Penistone until it finally emptied into the sea it was a veritable cesspool. A few weeks ago, I went to Sheffield, and it seemed to me that the river was flowing out in agony.”

And still little was done to help the river.

In the 1970s, the Sheffield Star printed a photograph of the River Don, riddled with pollution, with flames coming off the surface of the water.

But times have changed.

The decline of heritage industries and greater concern for the environment has seen the River Don steadily coming back to life, with the first spawning salmon heading back upriver, and migratory fish being seen for the first time in centuries.

Alas, whilst we love the River Don, it is quick to remind us who is the boss.

Over the years, the river has claimed thousands of lives, not least the Sheffield Flood of 1864, following the collapse of the Dale Dyke Dam on a tributary of the River Loxley, sending millions of gallons of water into the Don, and claiming 270 lives.

And don’t think that the floods of 2007, when the river burst its banks, flooding areas of Sheffield from the Wicker to Meadowhall, was anything new.

The River Don has repeatedly flooded over centuries , and despite millions of pounds being spent on flood defences, will inevitably claim the streets again in years to come.

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Places

The fig trees of the River Don

When our industrial ancestors enjoyed eating fig biscuits, they didn’t realise that they would leave a legacy for us.

Alongside the banks of Sheffield’s River Don, towards Meadowhall, are about 30 mature fig trees, some about 70-years-old, which owe their existence to a combination of human appetite, imperfect sewage and the steel industry.

Fig biscuits were popular amongst steel workers. The fig seeds passed through their digestive system, and each time there was a heavy storm a proportion of sewage overflowed into the river.

At the turn of the 20th century, because of industry alongside the River Don, the waters of the east end were at a constant twenty degrees creating perfect conditions for the fig seeds to germinate and grow.

And they’re not just confined to the Don, with fig trees also found on Porter Brook and the River Sheaf.

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People

James Montgomery

The memory of James Montgomery plays a prominent part in the public life of Sheffield during his sixty year’s residence here.

If you’ve never heard of him, take a walk to Sheffield Cathedral and look at his granite monument, with bronze statue by John Bell, moved from the overgrown General Cemetery in 1971.

Between 1792, when James Montgomery first set foot in Sheffield, becoming the assistant to Joseph Gales, of the Sheffield Register, and 1854, the year in which he died, vast changes took place.

Montgomery’s youth was a troubled and stormy period. His mature age was active, useful, benevolent, and made glorious by the development of his poetic genius. His old age had been still useful; beneficent on a large scale; honoured by all; and shedding a lustre on Sheffield, by investing it with popular hymns.

James Montgomery was the eldest son of the Rev. John Montgomery. He was born in 1771, the eldest of three sons. His father was a Moravian minister; at the time of his birth stationed at Irvine, in Ayrshire.

When he was five, his parents moved to Gracehill, Co. Antrim, and in his sixth year was placed in the Moravian School at Fulbeck, near Leeds, his family becoming missionaries to slaves in Barbados and Tobago.

Montgomery started writing poetry when he was ten-years-old and was destined for the church. However, after leaving Fulbeck Seminary in 1787, he ended up working in shops at Mirfield, near Wakefield, and later at Wath upon Dearne, near Rotherham.

A journey to London, with a hope of finding a publisher for his youthful poems, ended in failure; and in 1792, he was glad to leave Wath for Sheffield to join Mr. Gales, an auctioneer, bookseller and printer of the Sheffield Register newspaper, as his assistant.

In 1794, Mr. Gales left England or Germany to avoid a political prosecution. Montgomery took the Sheffield Register in hand, changed its name to the Sheffield Iris, and continued to edit it for 31 years. He was imprisoned twice; first for reprinting therein a song in commemoration of the Fall of the Bastille, and secondly for giving an account of a riot in Sheffield.

The editing of his paper, the composition and publication of his poems and hymns, the delivery of lectures on poetry in Sheffield and at the Royal Institute, London, and the earnest advocacy of Foreign Missions and the Bible Society in many parts of the country, gave great variety.

Montgomery was particularly associated with humanitarian causes such as the campaigns to abolish slavery and to end the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. He died in his sleep at the Mount, Sheffield, in 1854, and was honoured with a public funeral.

As a poet, Montgomery stands well to the front; and as a writer of 400 hymns, many still in use, he ranks in popularity with Wesley, Watts, Doddridge, Newton and Cowper.

As well as the monument carrying his name, there are various streets named after Montgomery and a Grade II-listed drinking fountain on Broad Lane. The meeting hall of the Sunday Schools Union (now known as The Montgomery), situated in Surrey Street, was named in his honour in 1886.

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Other

City of Sheffield Lifeboat

he story of a boat called City of Sheffield. This is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s Tyne-class all-weather lifeboat, No. 47-023, built in 1988, that is currently landlocked at the National Emergency Services Museum at West Bar.

The vessel was originally fundraised by the people of Sheffield, with the cost being met by Mrs Mary Mabel Walker. It was named City of Sheffield by HRH, the Duchess of Kent in July 1989 at Whitby Lifeboat Station.

It later served at Ramsgate, Hartlepool and Sennen Cove, Cornwall, before finding a permanent home in 2001 at Poole, in Dorset.

The “Big Orange Boat,” as it was affectionately nicknamed by locals, served Poole Harbour and coastline until being decommissioned in November 2016.

During its operational lifetime, the City of Sheffield was launched 557 times, saving 650 people, with RNLI volunteer crews onboard for 752 hours.

After being put in storage at Poole, it was moved to the National Emergency Services Museum on a five-year loan in 2017.

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Buildings

Midcity House

Union Street Limited, a Gibraltar-based developer, has submitted plans to Sheffield City Council for the redevelopment of Midcity House, on a site between Pinstone Street, Furnival Gate and Union Street.

The proposal includes the demolition of the existing four-storey concrete-clad building consisting of ground-floor retail, bar, offices and limited student accommodation above.

In its place would be three blocks, up to 25-storeys high, with four ground-floor retail units and 271 dwellings above for the build-to-rent market.

The site once stood on the boundary of old Sheffield Moor, part of a field in 1736, and occupied by houses, shops, workshops and yards by 1771.

Most of the properties survived until 1853 but had been demolished by the late nineteenth-century.

In later times it was occupied by the Nelson Public House, Cambridge Arcade and a series of shops, with most buildings replaced in the 1960s with the present structure.

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Buildings

No. 35 George Street

No. 35 George Street, located between High Street and Norfolk Street, isn’t that old compared to some of our buildings. Built in 1913-1914, this Grade II-listed structure might look a little lost these days.

It was built as the Yorkshire and Derbyshire office for the Alliance Insurance Company, established by Nathan Meyer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore in 1824, to rival Lloyds of London.

The George Street site had originally been the workplace of the Sheffield Fire Insurance Company, with offices on the upper floors and the town fire engine, small enough to be drawn up narrow passages, housed below.

The business transferred to the Alliance Insurance Company in 1864, but by the start of the twentieth century the offices were too small.

The insurance company moved into an adjoining building that once formed part of the Athenaeum Club, and the old building was demolished.

Its demise wasn’t without controversy. Then, like now, there were those who mourned the loss of an old building. However, the company offered to keep the whole of the top balustrade, comprising pillars with urns bearing the Sheffield coat-of-arms.

During construction, there were those that criticised the plan.

“Most of the property at the High Street and Norfolk Street ends of George Street is old, and if it had been made into a good wide street, its rateable value would also have increased. The ‘dog’s hind leg’, half-way along, is still to be perpetrated – a danger to traffic, and a perpetual monument to our Corporation’s ineptitude.”

That ‘dog’s hind leg’ still exists, but the finished offices, designed by Goddard & Co, were well-received.

“It is one of the most elegant, though, unfortunately one of the least prominently situated of Sheffield’s new buildings. Romanesque in design, and built of white stone, it is one of those buildings which are completely deceptive as to size. It gives the impression of consisting merely of one large hall, instead of which one finds on entering not only a main hall (56ft x 26ft), without counting a large annexe, but an extensive suite of offices in three floors. One reason for the deception is that the site extends through into Mulberry Street, where there is considerable frontage.”

And this deception still exists. Take a walk under the adjacent covered roadway into Mulberry Street, and you can see that there is a lot more to the building than meets the eye. It was clever use of fitting a prestigious building into a tiny site.

“Artistically designed as is the exterior of the building, the interior is even more so. The large hall is elegantly panelled in oak up to the ceiling, which is richly ornamented, and the annexe is lighted by a glass dome. The appointments of the board room are in keeping with those of the large hall, and all the offices are handsomely fitted and furnished, while the walls of the stairways and corridors are lined with tiles of a pretty design.”

How much of the original interior survives is uncertain, the Portland stone exterior has weathered, but the building retains its dignity.

The Alliance Insurance Company remained here until the second part of the twentieth century, merging with the Sun Insurance Company in 1959, and finally amalgamating with the Royal Insurance Company to form Royal Sun Alliance in 1996.

No. 35 George Street was later used by Midland Bank as an administrative facility, and is today occupied by the NSPCC as its Sheffield Service Centre.

Before you go, look closely at this photograph, taking note of the two stone urns, as well as the well-worn Sheffield coat-of-arms within the pediment. These are the only survivors from the long-demolished Sheffield Fire Insurance Company building… and I bet you never knew that!

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Streets

George Street

It is one of Sheffield’s oldest streets and contains some of our most significant buildings, including the former premises of the Sheffield Banking Company, now reborn as the Curzon Cinema (middle right), the old offices of the Alliance Insurance Company (centre) and the 1960s-built Cutler’s Hotel (left, originally the Sheffield Club).

The greatest mystery with George Street is the “dog’s hind leg” half-way along, a cause of traffic congestion in Victorian and Edwardian times, as it was a thoroughfare between High Street and Norfolk Street.

While many roads were widened, George Street was mercifully spared, despite our ancestors wanting the road to be straightened. This would have necessitated wholesale demolition of buildings.

The street’s historic layout was secured when the offices of the Alliance Insurance Company were built in 1913-1914, replacing the old Sheffield Fire Insurance Company building where the town fire engine was once housed.

It is now the NSPCC, Sheffield Service Centre.

Categories
Buildings

No. 35 George Street

While researching the history of No. 35, George Street, Sheffield, this remarkable old print came to light.

The site of what is now the NSPCC, Sheffield Service Centre, opposite the Curzon Cinema, used to be the office of the Sheffield Fire Insurance Company.

The Sheffield Fire Brigade used to practice in the space in front of what became Alliance Chambers, following the acquisition of the company in 1864 by the Alliance Insurance Company (now Royal Sun Alliance).

The small horse-drawn fire engine, small enough to get up alleyways, was housed on the ground floor.

The building was demolished in 1912 and replaced with new offices for the Alliance Insurance Company in 1913-1914.

However, two stone urns and the Sheffield coat-of-arms, seen here in this sketch, were transferred to the replacement building and can still be seen today. (The coat-of-arms built into the stone pediment).