Spirit of the dead pub

[Sheffield History]

MEET Michael Liversidge, founder of the Sheffield Dead Pubs Society. Only joking, but he has just brought out a picture book about them.

Time Gentlemen, Please, sub-titled The Demise of the Sheffield Public House, lists well over a hundred. What's more, Michael's had a drink in most of them.

We're outside the Tramway Hotel on London Road. He's supped there as well. There are two pictures of it in his book, both of them with trams on.

"Pubs are our social history. At one time you'd trust the landlord of your local with your money before the bank. It's getting that way again," he says.

Pubs can demise in Michael's book in several ways.

They can be demolished like the Rose Inn on Penistone Road, Hillsborough, to make way for a McDonalds, or the Hole in the Wall on Savile Street.

Then there was the Enfield on Broughton Lane, Carbrook. "Me and my father had a drink in there and two weeks later I was driving past and it had been demolished. No one had said a word."

But at least he had a picture of it.

Then there was the White Horse on Malinda Street. "It fell down while being renovated," says the caption.

Others are still standing but empty, like The Viaduct on The Wicker, the Shiregreen Hotel on Sicey Avenue, or the Queens Hotel on Scotland Street.

And some have been given different uses.

The Mill Tavern, also known as the Albion Hotel and Old Mill Tavern, on Earsham Street, Pitsmoor, had one too many for the road and is now an undertakers. The Staniforth arms on Staniforth Road is now a restaurant, while the Old Blue Bell on Worksop Road, which once sold Gilmour's Windsor Ales, is a mosque. The Norfolk Arms on Attercliffe Road has become a sauna.

Quite a few have been turned into flats, like the Royal Hotel on Abbeydale Road.

Some pubs don't go without a fight.

The Talbot on Hoyle Street became Ye Old Toad and then the Good Doctor, but to no avail. It was pulled down.

Occasionally a pub does a runner. There's a picture of the old Harlequin on Johnson Street, which has moved round the corner and taken up residence in the former Manchester Arms on Nursery Street.

"The book charts the changes and developments of the city," says Michael, who brought out an A-Z of Sheffield Pubs 10 years ago.

Then the pictures were postage stamp-sized to make way for the text and he got several hundred letters from readers wanting to see the pictures.

"It's taken 10 years but I've done it."

Among the dead pubs is the Players Cafe on Attercliffe Common, which is a bit of a cheat as it was a short-lived restaurant.

"It sold beer," said Michael, who made sure he had a pint there and who included it for sentimental reasons.

"It was my old school, Carbrook Elementary. I was in a pub from five to 11!"

n Published by Pickard Communication at £12.99 from local shops or:

www.youbooks.co.uk

http://www.thestar.co.uk/diary/Spirit-of-t...-pub.4250349.jp

[RichardB]

I'd like to meet that man someday ... he may be interested in our efforts on the Site.

[POPPYCHRISTINA]

I'd like to meet that man someday ... he may be interested in our efforts on the Site.

Bought the book. A few mistakes in it but a first class record of Sheffield pubs.