- Joined
- Dec 2, 2005
- Messages
- 70,158
‘Mucky Sheffield’, has changed a lot since I was a kid, and for example, carved stone reliefs were found on a city centre railway viaduct buried under SIX FEET of accumulated muck (dirt) and soot, and when the catching of a small fish in the canal elicited a headline on the sports page of the local paper. The Smokeless Zone Act of the late 1960’s, and the resultant shift away from coal-fires, made a big difference, but so too did the decimation of the steel industry in the 1980’s. Before that, passing through the city’s East End was like a trip through Dante’s Inferno. The city’s air is cleaner now, as are its rivers, buildings and houses are no longer uniformly black, but the days when Sheffield was ‘Steel City’ and produced knives, cutlery, and hand-tools for the whole world are no more.
Having been born and brought up in Sheffield, and always having had an interest in history, I know the city like the back of my hand. Leeds, Sheffield’s bigger Yorkshire neighbour where I live now, never produced much apart from money, and as a consequence the bombing it received from the Luftwaffe during World War 2 was as nothing compared to Sheffield. Large parts of Sheffield, including the city centre, were flattened by the falling bombs, and they were re-built at a time of little money and bad architectural ideas, further compounded by the decisions of incompetent or corrupt planning administrations. So the city, much as I love it, much as I appreciate the beauty of its hills, is something of a ‘dog’s dinner’ in terms of the way it looks.
If you were to come to the city as a stranger, you’d be shown a pleasant-enough time by the friendly and welcoming locals, but unless you know where to look, you wouldn’t see or learn much of its real history. If any of you forumites ever think about visiting, I’d be happy to be your guide. I used to run history walks in the city years ago, and can take you to pubs where ‘blacklegs’ were shot in ‘The Sheffield Outrages’, and where the police shot it out in the street with local villains in the Sheffield ‘Gang Wars’. Show you the course of the devastating Sheffield flood, caused by a burst dam in 1864, and show you a few interesting corners of the cutlery trade. Every time I visit Sheffield though, and I do regularly, more of its under-appreciated history has disappeared, so if you’re coming, come soon!
I was in Sheffield yesterday, to see one of my three daughters, who will hopefully make me a happy grandfather in the next week or two. Due to the hostelry we’d planned to lunch in being unexpectedly closed, we ended up in the area where I grew up as a child, now gentrified almost beyond recognition. Manfredi’s ice-cream business was gone (or at least re-located), as was Claudio’s barbershop, and Turley’s hardware store, but the Lescar Hotel (pub) where I worked as a 20 year-old barman, and the Two Steps fish & chip shop was still there, though they had changed.
My poor daughter had to hear me ramble on about the history of the area, and my childhood years, and worse was in store for her I’m afraid, when I discovered that a cutlery and ‘all things Sheffield’ shop, which I’d imagined closed years ago, was still open! I used to know the original owner, Don Alexander, now retired, but the shop has been taken over by new people and is thriving.
As well as lots of other British-made goodies, and a selection of books on local history, the shop had on display the biggest range of contemporary Sheffield-made slipjoints I’ve seen in years, knives from Taylors, Trevor Ablett, and Arthur Wright, and others bearing the Ibbotson and Rodgers marks. With my heavily-pregnant daughter waiting patiently, but clearly not enthralled by the sight her addled father drooling over pocket-knives, I tried to drink in the experience as quickly as possible, already planning a return visit.
As I went to pay for a small local history booklet, I got into conversation with the lady behind the counter and a customer who was purchasing a razor for her husband, eventually recommending one of the Edwin Jagger double-edged razors the shop stocks. As the discussion continued onto straight edge razors, the lady in the shop was kind enough to offer me a look at the owner’s collection of straight razors, or at least part of it. She took me to a small cabinet and opened a drawer full of old Sheffield razors, and was happy to leave me to look through them while she continued to serve her customer. There must have been at least 50 razors there, as well as a couple of small folders, one made by Stan Shaw, but I could see my daughter was wanting to sit down by now, so I gratefully thanked the kind lady, and went with my daughter to the coffee shop a few doors down.
The small book I bought was a guide to a local water-powered cutlery workshop, which has been preserved as a museum. Table and pocket knives were produced here from the 18th Century to the 1930’s. I grew up nearby, have visited it countless times, have done school projects on it, and even did ‘work-experience’ here in the mid-1970’s. I have always known it, and it is known locally, as Sheperd’s Wheel, but the name given in the book is Sheperd Wheel. Unfortunately, the histroric site, which used to be open every day to the public, is now only open by special appointment. The small booklet is not copyrighted, so I thought forum users might be interested by some of it.
After leaving the delightful shop, I drank coffee and chatted with my daughter. When she decided to have a second hot chocolate though, and as she was about to phone her partner, who was to join us, I begged leave to make a second visit.
Back in the shop, I chatted with the gentleman whose razors I had earlier been perusing, and as there were currently no customers in the shop, I was invited by the kind lady to more closely inspect the pocketknives, while we chatted about the local cutlery trade. She opened the glass display cases to allow me to examine the wares thoroughly. The slipjoints included some of the fancier, but expensive patterns from Arthur Wright and Taylor’s Eye Witness (who still make their knives in-house, like Arthur Wright, but unlike some of the other Sheffield firms). Then my host opened the lid of a display case containing some of the owner’s private collection, allowing me to examine whatever fine knife I chose to. I was in heaven, and could have stayed there all day, but was anxious not to outstay my welcome. The oldest item there was a beautiful knife and fork set from about 1600, from the time when people carried their own cutlery. The slim and beautifully-made table fork and knife fitted together in a lovely integral green wooden case formed from their respective handles. It was one of two similar sets in the collection. Unfortunately for me, as the lady was showing me the cutlery set, some customers entered the shop, and she had to attend to them as the gentleman was busy working on the computer. Aware that I had my small camera in my pocket, but not wishing to delay my kind host from her work, I quickly took a snapshot (sadly the knife and fork from 1600 was still in her hands).
My apologies for the poor quality of the photograph, but I thought you would like to see it anyway. The top tier shows about a quarter of the slipjoints on display in the shop, and the bottom tier, I’m sure, is only a small part of the owner’s historic collection. I consider myself very fortunate and privileged to have seen it, if only briefly.
My daughter’s partner had now arrived, and they suggested going to a local museum. I’ve been in this museum thousands of times, and have seen it change greatly over the years. While it’s an interesting place to visit, there are fewer and fewer knives on display everytime I go. Some have been relocated to other Sheffield museums. Many, many more must be stored away in cupboards somewhere. Apart from an obsidian knife, and an ivory paper knife, these are now the only knives on view:
[/CENTER]
Three knives from the Nile, between South Sudan and Sudan. The sheath and handles are made from different kinds of crocodile skin. The sheath is made from the spiny back and tail of the Nile crocodile.
These are Sheffield-made iron knives from around 1400.
I also bought a large number of postcards from the museum shop, some of which I thought you might be interested to see.
Trevor Ablett knives 2005
Set of straight razors, gilded and etched steel, ivory scales by Thomas R Cadman & Sons, Sheffield, around 1900. Pair of straight razors with ivory scales, also by Cadman & Sons, around 1880.
Sheffield from Derbyshire Lane 1797
Sheffield Exchange Brewery and Lady’s Bridge around 1900 (I worked in the brewery in 1979).
West View of Sheffield 1855.
Sheffield from Rock Street, Pitsmoor 1927 (looking directly towards the steel work and rolling mills of the ‘East End’
.
After parting from the happy couple, I had time to call in at a city centre shop, which, with the place I’d been to earlier, is the last outlet for good Sheffield knives in the city. While, it didn’t have the extensive range of knives of the previous shop, there was still an impressive number of slipjoints, clasp knives, and bowies on display, carrying the marks of Wostenholm, Rodgers, Ibbertson, Trevor Ablett, and perhaps more. I’ve chatted to the manager here before at length about the local cutlery trade, and we struck up conversation again. One of the things we lamented was the still common practice whereby small local makers produce their knives anonymously. She told me that it was only in the past few years that Trevor Ablett had been persuaded to start putting his name to the knives he makes. As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer Sheffield cutlers who have names to add.
Having been born and brought up in Sheffield, and always having had an interest in history, I know the city like the back of my hand. Leeds, Sheffield’s bigger Yorkshire neighbour where I live now, never produced much apart from money, and as a consequence the bombing it received from the Luftwaffe during World War 2 was as nothing compared to Sheffield. Large parts of Sheffield, including the city centre, were flattened by the falling bombs, and they were re-built at a time of little money and bad architectural ideas, further compounded by the decisions of incompetent or corrupt planning administrations. So the city, much as I love it, much as I appreciate the beauty of its hills, is something of a ‘dog’s dinner’ in terms of the way it looks.
If you were to come to the city as a stranger, you’d be shown a pleasant-enough time by the friendly and welcoming locals, but unless you know where to look, you wouldn’t see or learn much of its real history. If any of you forumites ever think about visiting, I’d be happy to be your guide. I used to run history walks in the city years ago, and can take you to pubs where ‘blacklegs’ were shot in ‘The Sheffield Outrages’, and where the police shot it out in the street with local villains in the Sheffield ‘Gang Wars’. Show you the course of the devastating Sheffield flood, caused by a burst dam in 1864, and show you a few interesting corners of the cutlery trade. Every time I visit Sheffield though, and I do regularly, more of its under-appreciated history has disappeared, so if you’re coming, come soon!
I was in Sheffield yesterday, to see one of my three daughters, who will hopefully make me a happy grandfather in the next week or two. Due to the hostelry we’d planned to lunch in being unexpectedly closed, we ended up in the area where I grew up as a child, now gentrified almost beyond recognition. Manfredi’s ice-cream business was gone (or at least re-located), as was Claudio’s barbershop, and Turley’s hardware store, but the Lescar Hotel (pub) where I worked as a 20 year-old barman, and the Two Steps fish & chip shop was still there, though they had changed.
My poor daughter had to hear me ramble on about the history of the area, and my childhood years, and worse was in store for her I’m afraid, when I discovered that a cutlery and ‘all things Sheffield’ shop, which I’d imagined closed years ago, was still open! I used to know the original owner, Don Alexander, now retired, but the shop has been taken over by new people and is thriving.
As well as lots of other British-made goodies, and a selection of books on local history, the shop had on display the biggest range of contemporary Sheffield-made slipjoints I’ve seen in years, knives from Taylors, Trevor Ablett, and Arthur Wright, and others bearing the Ibbotson and Rodgers marks. With my heavily-pregnant daughter waiting patiently, but clearly not enthralled by the sight her addled father drooling over pocket-knives, I tried to drink in the experience as quickly as possible, already planning a return visit.
As I went to pay for a small local history booklet, I got into conversation with the lady behind the counter and a customer who was purchasing a razor for her husband, eventually recommending one of the Edwin Jagger double-edged razors the shop stocks. As the discussion continued onto straight edge razors, the lady in the shop was kind enough to offer me a look at the owner’s collection of straight razors, or at least part of it. She took me to a small cabinet and opened a drawer full of old Sheffield razors, and was happy to leave me to look through them while she continued to serve her customer. There must have been at least 50 razors there, as well as a couple of small folders, one made by Stan Shaw, but I could see my daughter was wanting to sit down by now, so I gratefully thanked the kind lady, and went with my daughter to the coffee shop a few doors down.
The small book I bought was a guide to a local water-powered cutlery workshop, which has been preserved as a museum. Table and pocket knives were produced here from the 18th Century to the 1930’s. I grew up nearby, have visited it countless times, have done school projects on it, and even did ‘work-experience’ here in the mid-1970’s. I have always known it, and it is known locally, as Sheperd’s Wheel, but the name given in the book is Sheperd Wheel. Unfortunately, the histroric site, which used to be open every day to the public, is now only open by special appointment. The small booklet is not copyrighted, so I thought forum users might be interested by some of it.
After leaving the delightful shop, I drank coffee and chatted with my daughter. When she decided to have a second hot chocolate though, and as she was about to phone her partner, who was to join us, I begged leave to make a second visit.
Back in the shop, I chatted with the gentleman whose razors I had earlier been perusing, and as there were currently no customers in the shop, I was invited by the kind lady to more closely inspect the pocketknives, while we chatted about the local cutlery trade. She opened the glass display cases to allow me to examine the wares thoroughly. The slipjoints included some of the fancier, but expensive patterns from Arthur Wright and Taylor’s Eye Witness (who still make their knives in-house, like Arthur Wright, but unlike some of the other Sheffield firms). Then my host opened the lid of a display case containing some of the owner’s private collection, allowing me to examine whatever fine knife I chose to. I was in heaven, and could have stayed there all day, but was anxious not to outstay my welcome. The oldest item there was a beautiful knife and fork set from about 1600, from the time when people carried their own cutlery. The slim and beautifully-made table fork and knife fitted together in a lovely integral green wooden case formed from their respective handles. It was one of two similar sets in the collection. Unfortunately for me, as the lady was showing me the cutlery set, some customers entered the shop, and she had to attend to them as the gentleman was busy working on the computer. Aware that I had my small camera in my pocket, but not wishing to delay my kind host from her work, I quickly took a snapshot (sadly the knife and fork from 1600 was still in her hands).
My apologies for the poor quality of the photograph, but I thought you would like to see it anyway. The top tier shows about a quarter of the slipjoints on display in the shop, and the bottom tier, I’m sure, is only a small part of the owner’s historic collection. I consider myself very fortunate and privileged to have seen it, if only briefly.
My daughter’s partner had now arrived, and they suggested going to a local museum. I’ve been in this museum thousands of times, and have seen it change greatly over the years. While it’s an interesting place to visit, there are fewer and fewer knives on display everytime I go. Some have been relocated to other Sheffield museums. Many, many more must be stored away in cupboards somewhere. Apart from an obsidian knife, and an ivory paper knife, these are now the only knives on view:
[/CENTER]Three knives from the Nile, between South Sudan and Sudan. The sheath and handles are made from different kinds of crocodile skin. The sheath is made from the spiny back and tail of the Nile crocodile.
These are Sheffield-made iron knives from around 1400.
I also bought a large number of postcards from the museum shop, some of which I thought you might be interested to see.
Trevor Ablett knives 2005
Set of straight razors, gilded and etched steel, ivory scales by Thomas R Cadman & Sons, Sheffield, around 1900. Pair of straight razors with ivory scales, also by Cadman & Sons, around 1880.
Sheffield from Derbyshire Lane 1797
Sheffield Exchange Brewery and Lady’s Bridge around 1900 (I worked in the brewery in 1979).
West View of Sheffield 1855.
Sheffield from Rock Street, Pitsmoor 1927 (looking directly towards the steel work and rolling mills of the ‘East End’
.
After parting from the happy couple, I had time to call in at a city centre shop, which, with the place I’d been to earlier, is the last outlet for good Sheffield knives in the city. While, it didn’t have the extensive range of knives of the previous shop, there was still an impressive number of slipjoints, clasp knives, and bowies on display, carrying the marks of Wostenholm, Rodgers, Ibbertson, Trevor Ablett, and perhaps more. I’ve chatted to the manager here before at length about the local cutlery trade, and we struck up conversation again. One of the things we lamented was the still common practice whereby small local makers produce their knives anonymously. She told me that it was only in the past few years that Trevor Ablett had been persuaded to start putting his name to the knives he makes. As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer Sheffield cutlers who have names to add.
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