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Orchard Place


duckweed

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This started from having coffee in Waterstones because if you look out of the window you can see 2 Urns up in the air, So went in search of building that had Urns. Thought at first that it was the white building that was next to Museum pub but when I looked up Picture Sheffield definitely no Urns. Another picture from Picture Sheffield shows Sunshine Food shop with lots of Urns. Anyway started wondering what the big white building was originally. I know it was shops more recently but what was its original use? Any ideas?

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Also this map.

It was a well built and respectable house, with palisades in front and a fine old staircase. In this John Fisher, grandfather of the late Alderman Fisher, lived. Behind it was a productive garden, in which in addition to the common fruits, grapes grew on the walls. Behind the garden, with Orchard Place between, were the horn pressing works of Mr. Fisher. A very fine pear tree, a survival of Brelsforth's orchard, long remained growing by the entrance gate. After Mr. John Fisher, who dies in 1820, his sons Robert and William, the latter a fine old politician and reformer, occupied the house. When the Fishers went to live away from their works--Mr. Robert Fisher to Pitsmoor and Mr. William Fisher to Eyre Street and then to Woodside--Mr. John Stacey, merchant, occupied the house, and from him it passed to the Sheffield and Hallarnshire Bank, but the works were retained at the back by the Fishers, and are still carried on, though the trade has changed its character by their descendants." On the map there is also a Bone warehouse. The address for the House was 27 Orchard Place.

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Parkin and Bacon, were lithographic printers and engravers at Orchard Place, on the corner with Orchard street, from at least 1854 (31 Orchard Street / Orchard Place - Post Office Directory) until at least 1918.

There was a history of Bacons and Parkins in Sheffield – Harry Bacon on Snig Hill (died 1838), William Parkin on Fargate in the early 1800s, but I don't know if the families were connected with the Orchard Place firm.

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Don't think it is printers. That is not the right side of road to me. This unamed White House joins on to Museum Inn and printers join onto a Bone Warehouse.

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The reason why the 'White House' looks out of place in relation to Orchard Place is that someone shifted Orchard Place when no-one was looking!!!....

If you look on the map posted by duckweed above from 1896, the 'White House' (or printers) is at one side of Orchard Place and the Cigar Factory is at the other. See how far along Orchard Street it is? Almost equidistant between Leopold Street and Church Street. Now look at the same street layout on Google Maps. Orchard Place has been moved along Orchard Street, toward Leopold Street. Using duckweed's 1896 map again, it looks like No.s 29 and 31 Orchard Street were flattened to make way for the new Orchard Place, which was almost certainly at the time when Orchard Square was developed. You can still see where the old Orchard Place was. If you look on Google Maps, its above the "St" in Orchard St on the map legend.

So, everything now fits. Was a printers, is still immediately left of the Museum PH and still looks today (sort of) like it did then.

I remember the old Orchard Place; the back entrance to the Stone House was down there, which was a handy exit on the Saturday night pub crawl (on some occasions not of my own choosing!). Now it's the back end of Orchard Place and would bring you out in TK Maxx handbag department! lol As for the urns, it looks like someone sympathetically stuck them back on the new structure (that replaced the Sunshine Shop) just to keep the continuity going with the urn theme, which you can see on the building all the way around on to Church Street, where there's an urn on every corner! That's a handsome building and I wonder what that was? I'm sure it didn't start off life as 'ye olde recruitment agency'?......

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The building on that comes onto Church Street as far as I could ascertain was built as offices for a steel company and later was taken over by Wilson Peck as "piano rooms". I imagine that means he used it for teaching piano and possibly teaching singing there as I know Wilson Peck employed a number of music teachers.

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The large lintels are original (in the B&W Photo) as you can see where shutters were fitted to cover the windows, these were to deter burglars, the lintels were not only decorative but they served a purpose, they prevented rain r water dripping down from above onto the wooden shutters thus slowing down any rot that may attack the shutters.

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