HELP Re Gleadless Valley

[Guest LucieLou]

Please help!

I am doing a project re the history of Gleadless Valley, especially social housing, ie when and why it was built, any particular historical events that have happened there.

If you have any photos or interesting stories/memories please let me know.

Thanks

C x

[Guest tsavo]

Welcome LucieLou, welcome to Sheffield History. Can't help much with your project, I'm afraid as it's not my side of the City, but I remember it being built in the 1960s. It was a very busy decade from a development point of view and much of the housing was unusual as it was designed to fit into the landscape rather than being built on flattened cleared sites.

[Guest transit]

As well as various postings on here - another useful site is www.gleadless.net/ , with loads of pictures and history about Gleadless Valley which i am sure will help. I attended G.V. school on Mathews Lane (demolished 1996 for housing) and remember Hemsworth fair ,beside the cricket club opposite the water tower at the top end of G.V. which was a major attraction through the 70"s & 80"s.

[Guest plain talker]

My grandparents, my father, and his two brothers moved onto Gaunt Close, at the back of the John O' Gaunt pub, in 1957. this was when Fawcett Street was "redeveloped" (demolished) in a "slum" clearance programme. They were the first to live there.

The maisonettes on Gaunt road (where we moved to from my grandparents' house in 66) were built in 1958.

My father tells the tale of watching the farmer reap the crops on the fields which were there, opposite the housing on Gaunt Close, in the late summer of '58, just before he went into the army. He was posted overseas, and when he returned, the maisonettes were built.

My father didn't like living there, at first, because there were no shops, just a van that came on the street once a day, and then a little hut. No buses ran to the JO'G in those days, the nearest bus stop was way up the top of the hill, by the water tower.

My father hated the feeing of isolation he got from living so "far" out. He was used to being within a few minutes' walking distance of the city centre, and having all the amenities on his doorstep, like transport, pubs, cinemas, shops etc.

The development won many awards for its innovative design. it was laid out with sympathy to the ancient woodland that was in the area. it looked wonderful, when it was new, before the council stopped "vetting" the prospective tenants, and the district became a bit run down.

[RichardB]

Got to be worth a look here

http://www.oldheeley.org/index.htm

[RichardB]

http://www.heritagewoodsonline.co.uk/map/017/017c.html

Extract :

THE GLEADLESS VALLEY

Until the middle of the 19th century, the Gleadless Valley was an isolated rural area lying between the small villages of Heeley and Norton. At least four farms are known to have existed in the Lees Hall area since before the 17th century. As Sheffield grew to take in Heeley and Meersbrook, the valley began to be used by residents of nearby urban areas for walks and recreation. In order to serve these people, recreational facilities including allotments, sports grounds and Lees Hall Golf Course were established in the western part of the valley from the 1920s onwards.

[RichardB]

Gleadless Valley History Group

Janet Drabble 42 Sands Close SHEFFIELD S14 1QQ

0114 220 5102

jennar7@drabble7.freeserve.co.uk

Link from : http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/in-your-area/l...story-societies

[RichardB]

Gleadless Valley Tenant and Residents’ Association (TARA)

http://www.sheffieldhomes.org.uk/your-area...g-involved/tara

Extract :

A literature group of 13 people is producing a history of Gleadless Valley with the help of a £500 grant from the TARA.

[RichardB]

Local Heritage Initiative

http://www.lhi.org.uk/projects_directory/p...view/index.html

Extract :

We are currently researching the local history of the Birley/Frecheville and upper Gleadless area. (Ordnance Survey ref: SK 3953 8304). The information, when collated, will be published in a small book.

+ contact details

[RichardB]

Memories from Gleadless

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/67/a7616667.shtml

[RichardB]

Shearstone Pauline.: GLEADLESS (Sheffield) from village to Suburb. Sheffield Womens Printing Co-op 1985 "The story of Gleadless,once called The Forgotten Village and now a Sheffield suburb written & illustrated by Pauline Shearstone. 25 photographs 12 drawings and 5 maps. A good copy Stock ref 2073. £10.00

From : http://www.kenspelman.com/York%20Bookselle...ages/capes.html

or check out your local bookshop, or maybe, even on this site ...

[Guest miggy55]

It's a while since this topic started but I'll put my two penny anyway.

I was brought up on Gleadless Valley we moved there in about 1958. We moved into the maisonettes on Gaunt Road (No 349). When we move there the "Valley" was still being built.

The building started from the top around Hemsworth and Herdings area gradually working there way down Blackstock Road up the other side. The bridge at the bottom had not been constructed and the only bus running at that time was the 33 which terminated at the John O Gaunt shops.

After Blackstock Road was finished the Council introduced the 43 bus that linked the John O Gaunt to town via East Bank Road.

My first school was Hemsworth Road infants. I was there a short time and when the Rollestone School was built moved to that infant and then to the junior one which is connected.

I remember the terrible winter of 1963 and my mum taking me to school everyday (I was born in 1955). My most memorable recollection was there was still snow on the ground on my birthday 14th March.

Rollestone was a new school and I don't recall any bad memories.

I was regularly sent for food etc at the John O Gaunt shops. I recall Beanlands the grocers, Scholley was the newsagent, There was a butchers, green grocers and few others that I don't remember the names of. Also a Library. Later they added a "supermarket" the first I remember where you actually went round with a basket and picked up your own goods. That seemed so alien then, but is the norm nowadays.

At the back of Gaunt Road where the fields and woods which my friends and I spent many a happy day playing. Bonfires on the back on the 5th of November. Cricket and football and also collecting golf ball from the Lees Hall Golf course. I also did a bit of caddying where I was paid 8 shillings a round (40p).

My senior school was Gleadless Valley Comp often called Mathews Lane. I was genuinely shocked some years later to see it had been knocked down and houses built there. I enjoyed my school days there and my best friends were Kevin Newall,and Andrew Selkirk. There were some great teachers and some truly awful ones. Mr Grant an absolute so and so who actually had a Hitler mustache. I hated him, Despite him the rest of the teachers were OK I'm sure that other people reading this will have their opinions of that school (I was there from 1966 til 1971). In my minds eye I can see all the classrooms and teachers.

The Gleadless Valley was famous throughout Europe, apparently as an estate that was built sensitively with the environment and with a diverse selection of type of housing.

[Guest plain talker]

Hi Miggy, So you would have lived in either the second block of maisonettes from the bottom, or the very bottom block (our block of maisonettes was bang opposite Gaunt Way, the 320's block)

As I said in my post above, my grandparents were moved onto Gaunt Close, on the Valley in about 57, from the clearances in the Fawcett Street area.

My dad watched the farmer reap the fields over the back of Gaunt road, just before he went into the army in the Autumn of 58. When he came back, the blocks of maisonettes that backed onto the golf course and Lees Hall Woods had been built.

The Architects had laid the estate out with sympathy to the ancient woodland there, and it is true that the estate won many awards for the design, and people were brought in from all over the world to admire the estate.

There were minor problems with the design, for example, the extensive use of flat-rooved designs for the properties. Flat rooves weren't really compatible with the wet weather we have in the UK, they are more suited to the Mediterranean areas which didn't get a lot of rain.

I remember each family in the block of maisonettes taking it in turns to sweep and mop the communal landings, and they were lovely to live in.

it really only deteriorated when the council started moving what were euphemistically termed "problem" families into the housing there.

The shops on the John O'Gaunt that I remember were the Newsagent on the very end, then there was Shentalls, which became a Fine Fare, there was a Gower-And-Burgins supermarket right beside the Gaunt, which from some pictures I have seen of the early days of GV, wasn't built for a few years. I keep forgetting the name of the family who owned the greengrocers. I remember the son was called Alan.

I went to Constable Road School, too, I was in Miss Longbottom's class for the first couple of years then Mrs Brown's. I moved up to the juniors where I remember Mr Turville (?) the deputy head, and the lovely Mr Ibbotson, (who I bumped into in town a few days ago! ) Mr Deakin was my teacher in J3.

[Guest wayneybabes]

I currently live on Ironside Road, just off Blackstock. We live next to the part of the woods called The 'Lumb'. Our house was built in 1959 and is one of those houses that slope downwards with the flat roof's. Last year, Hartleys Greengrocer shop on the Gaunt Shopping Centre, celebrated 50 years of business, with the original owners son, Alan, and his Wife, still going strong along with thier son Lee

We also used to live in the maisonettes which we found to be ok but we had a problem with the neighbour playing his music at all hours which disturbed our babies sleep.

Before moving into the maisonettes i lived in a one bedroom flat behind the Gaunt shops.

[History dude]

Extract from Ten Years of Housing in Sheffield 1953-63.

Design staff for Gleadless: D. R. Paxton, A. N. Tunley, G. M. D. Elson, J Gray, G. A. Butcher, R. A. Shaw, and R. T. Simpson. Structural Engineers for Point Blocks (Flats): John Liversedge & Partners.

Gleadless Valley commenced 1955 will eventually house some 17,000 persons. A great deal of research was carried out in designing the house types suitable for steep slopes. A footpath system being planned independently of the road system links together the 3 neighbourhoods.

[History dude]

Extra- The reason such housing was built was due to incresed population of Sheffield after WW2. Plus the lack of affordable housing being built by the private sector. Housing shortages were a big problem and the BBC drama Cathy Come Home highlited the problem further. The council had a very strict re-housing policy. Sadily the housing deparment was also plagued by racism and many new housing estates had few "black" people moving there. In the end they had to buy there own properties in areas such as Attercliffe, which were so run down, that white people had vacted them for the new estates.

[duckweed]

When I was looking up about Newfield Green I came upon a bundle of newspaper cuttings. Apparently there

was a lot of fuss about building on green belt land. Also some of the land had belonged to the Bagshawes

and was sold with the condition that the woodlands were kept intact. Despite that some of the woodland

has been cut into.