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That right the little piece of grass land that you wouldn't think you could put a building on is right opposite the huge stone wall if its standing still on common side if you look at the map you can see howard hotel and the little lane behind it has gates at the top that used to have a key for the residents of Birkendale view and birkendale. in front is the St Josephs home which ADH Demolition Ltd demolished and i put photos of the font that used to be on this site in an article on here under Demolition of sheffield.. we still have this stone font as a feature at home today

When I'm doing my articles, I look through Sheffield Directories from 1780 to 1911 not consecutive I might add, but you see place and street names spelt different, Broomhill, was Broom Hill, Ringinglow was Ringinglowe, there's plenty more but not having the directories at had these two are just an example. It really annoys me when names that have been used for years are altered for no good reason.

I remember going there in the late 1960's for the firm of Accountants I worked for to do the audit of some of the firms books that operated there. There are 3 things that I still remember. One was that I was walking down a narrow corridor and hearing a rattle in front of me. The next thing was about 6 sides of meat come flying round a corner on an overhead rail. You had to be quick and lean against the wall, otherwise you got flattened, I remember that one day I parked my car near some buildings. At dinner time I went to my car to eat my sandwiches. Unfortunately, I had parked near a vent, and the smell from that had got into my car. It was so bad, that there was no way I could eat my food. It took days to clear the smell from my car. I remember a man walking past me with 2 buckets full of raw tripe. It was pure black. Up to then I had often enjoyed having a plate of tripe at the stall in the Castle market. You used to buy a small plate with the "white" tripe on and then add your own salt, pepper and vinegar. Anybody else remember that stall. Also my mum used to cook tripe and onions in a milky source. We used to have this on a bed of bread and butter. I do not think I had any further tripe after seeing the raw black stuff. There was a firm with a name I believe of Sheffield Hides, Skins and bones. I believe they had a premises in the abattoir They also collected these items from most of the butchers in the Sheffield area for recycling. Not sure what happens today.

Back to Black Swan Walk itself - i have walked past this so many times and never walked down, but today myself and Andy1702 explored the old buildings and fittings down there. There is an amazing amount to interest a local historian in such a small space! Firstly a well worn pair of stones on either side of the entrance which Andy says were to protect the corner of the buildings from coach/cart wheels, further down there is a metal rail on the left hand side which seems to be to guide cart wheels along the path, immediately opposite is a fantastic old shop front, reasonably well preserved. At the bottom just before the winch which is mentioned earlier on the thread, there is a turntable on the left which is large, maybe 15 feet across. What was that for? If anyone is in town go and have a poke around! We have some photos and will try to upload some soon.