Sheffield - April 2018

During my recent visit to Staveley, I took time to rediscover a few sites in Sheffield, the nearest big city to my home. Here are some notes and photos.

Kelham Island

This area is not really an island though it is surrounded by the River Don and a cut that creates the ‘island’ and provides water power to the surrounding small factories and workshops.  The area has received considerable attention and many Victorian factories and structures have been restored. There has also been a significant amount of new development with apartments, townhouses, restaurants and pubs.  It’s impressive to see Sheffield going through all this growth and redevelopment. It is turning into a first rate city.

Kelham Island

Kelham Island Museum

The museum at Kelham Island is housed in an old power station.  It is a wonderful museum depicting all aspects of the steel industry in Sheffield.  From the blister steel making in the early days through to the more sophisticated steels that can be made today.  There is an impressive Bessemer Converter sitting outside the museum and inside the museum the most impressive exhibit is a mighty steam engine.  This engine built by Davy Brothers of Sheffield in 1905 is a 400 ton, 12,000 horsepower engine built to power the steel rolling mills that produced armor plating which of course was in high demand during the First World War. The ground shakes when it starts moving. What is impressive is the speed at which it can reverse its motion. Since rolling steel was repeated many times for the same piece of steel the engine can roll in one direction and then within a couple of seconds reverse its motion to go the other way.

Bessemer Converter

12,000 Horsepower Steam Engine

Also in the museum is a small collection of automobiles from Sheffield companies.  A very impressive and luxurious example from the Simplex Company that operated in Tinsley from 1907 to 1922 when it closed down.  An impressive car from a company that I hadn’t heard of before. Apparently Tsar Nicholas of Russia owned several.

The Simplex Car

Cementation Furnace

In the early days of steel production wrought iron and carbon were basically cooked together for few days.  The process was invented in Germany in the 1600’s and later imported to England. The process was developed into what is known as a the Cementation Process whereby wrought iron was stacked in stone chests along with charcoal in a furnace which, once lit, was allowed to “cook” for 7 to 10 days.  At the end of the period you had low grade steel, known as blister steel because of the blistered surface to the steel in the chests.

Cementation furnaces were all over Sheffield once upon a time, but alas now only one exists.

Cementation Furnace

Paternoster Lift

In the Arts Building at Sheffield University there is an unusual lift (elevator to my American friends), a Paternoster Lift.  Basically it is a continuously moving lift with with cars that go up one side swing over the top and down the other side on a continuous loop.  There are also no doors. It doesn’t stop so there’s no time to allow doors to open and close. You just wait till a car reaches your level and then you step on or off.   Once you get the timing right it works well, but as you can imagine, there are plenty of opportunities for accidents.

Royal Exchange Buildings

This group of unusual, for Sheffield, buildings that wouldn’t look out of place in Amsterdam are next to the River Don, adjacent to the Lady’s Bridge, the oldest bridge in Sheffield.

Royal Exchange Building

Golden Post Box

This post box near the City Hall was painted gold to commemorate local girl, Jessica Ennis-Hill’s Olympic Gold Medal in the Heptathlon in the London Games.

Jessica's Gold Post Box

Redmires Military Camp/POW Camp

In a forested area next to the Sportsman’s Pub on Redmires Road at Lodge Moor are the remains of a First World War military training camp.  It was set up to train the volunteers for the Sheffield City Battalion at the start of the war. Towards the end of the war it was used as an Internment Camp for German POWs.  Apparently Admiral Doenitz, the successor to Adolf Hitler, for a brief period after Hitler’s suicide, was interned here at the end of the First World War.

All that is left now are the cement slabs and brick foundations to the camp huts. The area is quite extensive but is now overgrown with trees.

Redmires Camp Foundations

Portland Works

This cobbled courtyard and its surrounding buildings once housed a group of metal workers that performed all stages of the manufacture of cutlery.  It was built around 1870 and the original chimney is still intact though it now sprouts a tree on its top. The complex has been purchased with the intent of preserving the site.

Portland Works

Portland Works

Police Box

Once a common site when Bobbies patrolled the streets of Sheffield but now only one exists.  A green Police Box sits alongside the Town Hall. A place for the policemen to shelter, perhaps to temporarily lock up a miscreant, to place for a phone to call for assistance.  All things from a time gone by.

Sewage Gas Destructor Lamp

Sewer gas was a problem in the late 1800’s, it was foul smelling and there was always the risk of an explosion.This ingenious gas lamp was developed by Joseph Webb at the end of the 19th century.  Basically it sits on top of a sewer vent in an area like the top of a hill where sewer gas might accumulate. The heat of the gas lamp, hotter than an ordinary gas lamp of the time, draws up the gas from the sewer below and safely dissipates it into the atmosphere above street level.   

This one, on Brincliffe Edge Road, is still functioning as a gas light, though I gather sewer gas is not such an issue these days.

The Sewage Gas Destructor Lamp

The Cutting Edge

In front of the railway station there is a steel sculpture curving down the length of the square from the road to the station.  It is made of Sheffield Stainless Steel and is known as the "Cutting Edge".  Water flows from the top over the sides of the sculpture.  Quite impressive.

The Cutting Edge

There are more photos of Sheffield here.