Sheffield - Steel City - a photo on Flickriver

"Garden Street, (Cutlery area)"

Scans of six slides from the "Sheffield - Steel City" set - A15 in the "Esso Geography Studies" series. The set seems intended for school use and was probably published in early 1960s.

Nothing in the pack identifies the photographer or copyright owner. I hope Esso and the photographer(s) will be glad to see these seeing the light of day rather than object to my posting them...? Thank you very much to Sheila for the gift and to Mr Curzon for storing them for our delight years later.

The text in the booklet that accompanies the slides is by Prue Dempster - Senior Lecturer in Geography, Whitelands College, London. A lot has changed in the intervening forty years as shown in the pictures but also in the text.

A15/2
Garden Street in the cutlery area on Hallam Moor from GR 348876, looking east
With the advent of the use of coal, the cutlery industry developed on Hallam Moor, west of the centre of Sheffield. In Garden Street there are still a few of the workshops built between 1751 and 1801 when Sheffield grew from a small town of 12,000 people to a busy industrial centre of 46,000. Many people moved in from the surrounding countryside and built homes with a workshop attached where they made knives, saws and other cutting implements.

Today the character of Garden Street is changing rapidly. There are some firms in old buildings, like Petty's on the left who employ fifteen people to make tools, especially paint scrapers. Behind them is the Toledo works where the Kirk family organises the making of table knives, many of them for export. They design the knives, take orders for them and 'put-out' the work to a number of small independant family concerns working in their own homes. There is great specialization here with each family only doing a small aprt of the operation, e.g. cutting the blades or making the handles. The completed knives return to the Toledo works to be packed and despatched. Many of these home workshops have been replaced during the last five years by small new factories where the people come to work.

In this short street there are thirteen firms making cutlery. Some specialize in tools, including saws, drills and scrapers, others manufacture scissors or knives. Two other workshops in the street make chains and industrial gloves.

The whole of the old cutlery area is now being rebuilt. Some of this is piecemeal, as is the case in Garden Street. Nearby, whole streets are being demolished and larger factories built. At the end of the street some of Sheffield's large blocks of new flats can be seen. This is the Park Hill development, sited on one of the hills which extend into the middle of the city, and which until recently were bare of houses.

(Not sure about that last bit, Park Hill replaced slums but the area also had a fair bit of the old deer park too I suppose.)

Taken on: February 10, 2007

Tags:

byother

sheffield

esso geography studies

prue dempster

history

geography

iron

steel

cutlery

industry

garden street

park hill « less

Sets appears in: • Made In Sheffield

Groups appears in: • Sheffield Then and Now • SHEFFIELD AND ENGLAND RAMBLERS

Stats: 11,158 views / 7 comments

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