Sheffield, the Steel City

Sheffield is the "Steel City", for centuries the world capital of cutlery and knives and the place where stainless steel was invented. After the harsh industrial decline of the 1980s, told with irony in the film The Full Monty, the city reinvented itself as a centre of universities, sport and music, and discovered an unexpected calling: it is one of the greenest big cities in Europe, with parks, woods and a third of its territory inside the Peak District National Park. Built, like Rome, on seven hills, Sheffield is also the home of the world's oldest football, the stage for the world snooker championships and the city of bands such as Pulp and Arctic Monkeys. Less well known to tourists than neighbouring Leeds and Manchester, it surprises with its straightforward warmth and still affordable prices.

Sheffield at a glance

With more than half a million inhabitants, Sheffield is one of England's largest cities and the centre of the county of South Yorkshire. It stands where five rivers meet, the Don, the Sheaf, the Porter, the Loxley and the Rivelin, which once turned the waterwheels of the workshops: the city's very name comes from the Sheaf. The terrain is hilly and in many areas the streets climb steeply. Sheffield has two universities, the University of Sheffield, founded in 1905 and part of the prestigious Russell Group, and Sheffield Hallam University, with about 60,000 students in all. It is governed by a city council and is part of the South Yorkshire mayoral authority, led by an elected mayor.

The history of Sheffield

The knives of Hallamshire

Sheffield was already famous for knives in the Middle Ages: at the end of the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Canterbury Tales, describes a character carrying a Sheffield knife at his belt. The rivers provided the power to grind blades, the hills the sandstone for grindstones and coal, and the woods charcoal. In 1624 the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, the cutlers' guild, was founded, and it still meets in the sumptuous Cutlers' Hall opposite the cathedral. In the city's castle, now vanished, and at nearby Manor Lodge, Mary, Queen of Scots spent almost fourteen years of her long captivity, between 1570 and 1584, in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

The steel revolution

In the 18th century Sheffield became the laboratory of modern metallurgy. Around 1740 the clockmaker Benjamin Huntsman invented crucible steel, much purer and more uniform, and in 1743 Thomas Boulsover discovered Sheffield plate, a technique for fusing a thin layer of silver onto copper that made silverware affordable for the middle classes. In the 19th century the city filled with foundries and steelworks along the Don valley, and its population grew at breakneck speed; the inventor Henry Bessemer opened his works here to produce steel in large quantities. In 1913 the metallurgist Harry Brearley, looking for a durable steel for gun barrels, discovered stainless steel, which would revolutionise kitchens around the world. In 1864 the city was struck by one of the worst disasters in British history, the Great Sheffield Flood: the collapse of the new Dale Dyke dam killed about 240 people. Sheffield was granted city status in 1893.

Decline and revival

During the Second World War the steelworks produced weapons and armour plate, and in December 1940 German bombing hit the centre hard. After the war the city experimented with the boldest urban planning, with the gigantic Park Hill housing estate, opened in 1961 on the hill above the station. In the 1980s the crisis in steel and coal was devastating: tens of thousands of jobs disappeared, and the miners' strike of 1984-1985 had one of its most violent moments at Orgreave, a few kilometres from the city. On 15 April 1989, during an FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough stadium, 97 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death in an overcrowded stand, the worst disaster in British sport. Since the 1990s Sheffield has recovered by betting on education, sport, culture and advanced technology: steel is still made, in smaller quantities but of very high quality, and an industrial research hub linked to the university and aerospace has grown up around the city.

What to see in Sheffield

The centre

The heart of the city is the Peace Gardens, a square with fountains much loved by children in summer, next to the neo-Gothic Town Hall. A few steps away is the Winter Garden, one of the largest urban glasshouses in Europe, with more than two thousand plants from around the world under a huge vault of wood and glass, and the Millennium Gallery, which displays the city's metalwork and silverware collection and that of John Ruskin, the great Victorian critic who founded a museum for working people in Sheffield. The cathedral combines a medieval part and modern extensions. Division Street and the Devonshire Quarter are full of independent shops, cafés and bars.

Kelham Island and industrial history

North of the centre, along the Don, the Kelham Island district was the heart of industrial Sheffield and is now the liveliest part of the city, with factories turned into flats, craft breweries, historic pubs and restaurants. The Kelham Island Museum tells the story of steel and keeps the River Don Engine, a gigantic steam engine of 1905, the most powerful working steam engine in Europe, which is set in motion at certain times of day. South of the city, Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet is an 18th-century workers' village with waterwheels and furnaces, where scythes were made.

Museums, parks and theatres

Weston Park Museum, in a fine park near the university, has collections of natural history, archaeology and local history, while the Graves Gallery displays British painting. The Botanical Gardens of 1836, with their restored Victorian glass pavilions, are a little gem. Sheffield has more than eighty parks and many woods: from the city you can walk into the wooded valley of Endcliffe and Porter Brook, with old mill ponds. The theatre complex, with the Crucible and the Victorian Lyceum, is one of the largest in the country outside London. The Park Hill estate, now a listed building, has been partly refurbished and houses flats, artists' studios and an art gallery; on the bridge linking two blocks the famous illuminated declaration of love remains, taken from graffiti of the 2000s.

The "Outdoor City"

Today Sheffield proudly presents itself as the Outdoor City. About a third of its territory lies within the Peak District National Park, and the city has millions of trees in its parks, ancient woodlands and avenues. The valleys of the Rivelin and Porter, once dotted with dozens of waterwheels, are now green walks among mill ponds, ruined grinding workshops and oak woods. Residents' attachment to greenery came to the fore between 2016 and 2018, when the council's plan to fell thousands of street trees under a maintenance contract sparked daily protests, arrests and a wide national campaign: an independent inquiry later severely criticised the handling of the affair, and the city now has a shared strategy to protect its trees. The city also has climbing walls, mountain bike trails and an artificial ski slope.

Sport: football and snooker

Sheffield is the cradle of organised football. Sheffield FC, founded in 1857, is recognised by FIFA as the oldest football club in the world, and the first written rules of the game, the Sheffield Rules, influenced the official ones. Two historic teams divide the city: Sheffield United, who play at Bramall Lane, the oldest professional stadium in the world still in use, and Sheffield Wednesday, whose ground is Hillsborough. The derby between them, the Steel City derby, is one of the most passionate in England. Since 1977 the Crucible Theatre has hosted the world snooker championships every spring, followed by millions of television viewers. Sheffield is also the city of the Olympic athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, heptathlon champion at London 2012, and a capital of climbing and fell running, thanks to the nearby gritstone edges of the Peak District.

Music

Few cities have given so much to British music. In the 1970s and 1980s Sheffield was the cradle of electronic pop with The Human League, Heaven 17, ABC and Cabaret Voltaire; then came Def Leppard, the singer Joe Cocker, Jarvis Cocker's Pulp, who told the city's story in their songs, and in the new century Arctic Monkeys, who grew up in the High Green area. Every July the Tramlines festival brings tens of thousands of people to concerts in Hillsborough Park and the city's venues.

Eating and drinking

Sheffield is regarded as one of Britain's capitals of craft beer, with dozens of breweries and historic pubs, especially in Kelham Island and Neepsend: the "Valley of Beer" is a much-loved pub trail. The local condiment par excellence is Henderson's Relish, a spicy sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce, made in the city since 1885 and found on every table, which Sheffielders defend with pride. The Moor Market covered market, the London Road area with its international restaurants and the cafés of Ecclesall Road and Sharrow Vale offer choices for every taste, at lower prices than in many other big cities.

Events

Besides the Tramlines festival and the world snooker championships, June brings Sheffield DocFest, one of the world's leading documentary film festivals. In autumn the Outdoor City Weekender and mountain film festivals celebrate the city's adventurous spirit, while in December Christmas markets liven up the centre.

Living in Sheffield

Sheffield has a reputation as one of the friendliest big cities in the country, and also one of the most affordable: rents and house prices are much lower than in London, Bristol or Manchester, which makes it very popular with students, many of whom decide to stay after graduating. The economy is based on the universities, healthcare, services, advanced manufacturing and digital, with the Advanced Manufacturing Park between Sheffield and Rotherham. Quality of life benefits from closeness to nature: half an hour by bus and you are on the moors. The South Yorkshire accent is unmistakable, and locals often call strangers love or duck. The downsides are the inequalities between the wealthy western districts and the poorer eastern ones, a legacy of industrial decline, and public transport that many consider inadequate.

Practical information

• Getting there: the most convenient airport is Manchester, about an hour away by train; closer, but with fewer flights, are Leeds Bradford and East Midlands. From Sheffield station trains reach London St Pancras in about two hours.
• Getting around: the centre is walkable, despite the hills. The Supertram, a modern tram network running since 1994, links the centre to the university, Hillsborough, Meadowhall and, with a tram-train, nearby Rotherham.
• When to go: from May to September for the weather and festivals; in spring for the snooker.
• How long to stay: a day or two for the city, plus a few days if you want to explore the Peak District.

Day trips

• The Peak District: Britain's first national park, created in 1951, begins at the city's edge, with the gritstone cliffs of Stanage Edge, the village of Castleton with its caverns, and the hill of Mam Tor.
• Chatsworth House: one of the finest country houses in England, home of the Dukes of Devonshire, with vast gardens and parkland, about half an hour away by car.
• Bakewell and Eyam: Bakewell is famous for its Bakewell pudding; Eyam is the "plague village", which in 1665-1666 voluntarily isolated itself to stop the contagion spreading.
• Wentworth Woodhouse and Hardwick Hall: a mansion with one of the longest façades in Europe and a splendid Elizabethan house with huge windows.
• York and Leeds: both under an hour away by train.

See also British cities, the Industrial Revolution and England.

Sheffield on the map

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