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The Wedding Cake Registry Office In Sheffield


Sheffield History

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Looking for as much information as possible on the Wedding Cake Registry Office that used to be in Sheffield.

For example when it was built, when it was knocked down, and a few stories such as famous people that might have been there, got married there etc, plus a few stories from those who did get married there.

Always seemed a bit soulless to me, like a crematorium. Same kind of feel really, in one door, out the next as quickly as possible without it feeling obvious that you were on a conveyor belt system

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Something I do recall was some poor workman who was carrying out repairs to the curved paving just outside the entrance doors, who almost disappeared down a extremely deep hole that appeared in front of his feet. This was some years before it's final closure.

It turned out it was the well for the old Eyre Street Brewery that used to stand on the site.

Brewery wells were hundreds of feet deep in order to obtain the pure water necessary for the beer.

At the time I worked just over the way and went for a look but they were keeping people well clear because they weren't sure what it was. They capped it and put a brass plaque on top.

Around the same time they were digging the foundations for the SHU footbridge over Pond Street.

They found a large iron plate just where one of the bridge piers was to go. When they removed it another shaft was revealed. This one wasn't too deep and had a horizontal heading so far down it running under Pond Street. Strangely enough the workmen reported fresh air coming up the shaft. Although it too was the site of an old brewery, ( Rawson's ), it wasn't thought to be a well, but rather a very old mine working. Anyway it was filled with concrete before anybody could blink.

When the new Harmer Building extension to the University was built circa 1990, the one in front of the Owen Building, they had to spend months injecting cement slurry under great pressure, into the ground to stabilise it. Apparently it was full of old mineworkings and described as "like a swiss cheese".

HD

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Something I do recall was some poor workman who was carrying out repairs to the curved paving just outside the entrance doors, who almost disappeared down a extremely deep hole that appeared in front of his feet. This was some years before it's final closure.

It turned out it was the well for the old Eyre Street Brewery that used to stand on the site.

Brewery wells were hundreds of feet deep in order to obtain the pure water necessary for the beer.

At the time I worked just over the way and went for a look but they were keeping people well clear because they weren't sure what it was. They capped it and put a brass plaque on top.

Around the same time they were digging the foundations for the SHU footbridge over Pond Street.

They found a large iron plate just where one of the bridge piers was to go. When they removed it another shaft was revealed. This one wasn't too deep and had a horizontal heading so far down it running under Pond Street. Strangely enough the workmen reported fresh air coming up the shaft. Although it too was the site of an old brewery, ( Rawson's ), it wasn't thought to be a well, but rather a very old mine working. Anyway it was filled with concrete before anybody could blink.

When the new Harmer Building extension to the University was built circa 1990, the one in front of the Owen Building, they had to spend months injecting cement slurry under great pressure, into the ground to stabilise it. Apparently it was full of old mineworkings and described as "like a swiss cheese".

HD

Crikey !!

Awesome stuff thank you for posting that !!

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When Arundel Gate from Castle Square to Furnival gate was being built, there was a delay because they uncovered a seam of coal, and the then Coal Board exercised their legal option of extracting the coal before work on the road could proceed. More recently, digging the foundations for one of the new buildings just off the roundabout at Furnival Gate they hit the coal again. And some distance away, it was reported in the Telegraph that the work on the extension for the Childrens Hospital (or was it the new Physics block at the Uni?) involved extracting a number of lorryloads of coal. Sheffield seems to be built on coal. Remind me, where do we get our coal? USA? Colombia? Russia?

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Something I do recall was some poor workman who was carrying out repairs to the curved paving just outside the entrance doors, who almost disappeared down a extremely deep hole that appeared in front of his feet. This was some years before it's final closure.

It turned out it was the well for the old Eyre Street Brewery that used to stand on the site.

Brewery wells were hundreds of feet deep in order to obtain the pure water necessary for the beer.

At the time I worked just over the way and went for a look but they were keeping people well clear because they weren't sure what it was. They capped it and put a brass plaque on top.

HD

Does the brass plaque still exist or even the site of the brewery? I can't really picture the various changes in the immediate area and how they might have affected any remains. Mind you last time something you wrote intrigued me i went searching for small Blitz remains so i might just go and get a spade now!

Interesting stuff as ever!

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Does the brass plaque still exist or even the site of the brewery? I can't really picture the various changes in the immediate area and how they might have affected any remains. Mind you last time something you wrote intrigued me i went searching for small Blitz remains so i might just go and get a spade now!

Interesting stuff as ever!

Good Luck with that quest Calvin72.

The last time I looked someone had placed a rather tall building on the site :(

HD

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Yes, a VERY tall building HD

I was struck by the irony that Sheffield's tallest building might possibly be built over Sheffield's deepest hole, always assuming that it had been capped and not filled in.

However looking on a sub-site of The British Geological Survey that shows the depth of boreholes all over Sheffield (and England) I see that there are various contenders for the longest drop towards the antipodes.

The bore-hole where the Register Office is located is classified, but the Exchange Brewery had a couple of wells 512 feet deep and the Sheaf Brewery had some at 440 feet deep.

The George Bassett factory has a couple at 804 feet deep.

WELL WELL fancy that.

HD

If anyone else is interested in what's beneath our feet you can find the website at http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/boreholescans/home.html

Edit 2

Further to the above I've just found another reference to a well at Exchange Brewery at 920 feet deep.

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I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't found that borehole website. :wacko:

I've just found a reference to a 50 foot deep well that was sunk in August 1939 in the grounds of the old Royal Infirmary.

It's purpose was for the storage of Radium isotopes for the Sheffield Radium Centre which was located on that site.

It appears the water level was 12 feet down.

I can appreciate that the Radium had to be safe from enemy action but sticking it in the local water table sounds a bit rash to say the least.

Apparently the isotopes were transferred to Tree Root Walk at the end of the war and the well was abandoned.

And to think people are getting worried about water supplies being contaminated by fracking operations. :o

HD

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Image taken by me in November 1976, so the "Wedding Cake" would have been only three years' old at the time.

I never imagined, back then, when I took this particular photograph, that the subject in question would only have so short a lifespan.

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I registered my daughter's birth there. The registrar asked when she was born, I said the 1st of January. What time? 9a.m. Brilliant, I win the sweepstake!

Apparently the registrars had an annual sweepstake for who would register the first birth of the year!

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I too was married there in October 1974. When it came to exchanging vows I couldn't spronounce solemnly which raised a few sniggers.

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I worked in the place, ( incidentally, properly named a ‘ RegistER’ Office - the too -commonly used, colloquial, term ‘RegistRY’Office being quite wrong), for several years in the ‘70s when it was still quite new and I thought it well very well designed, certainly, very comfortable to work in with respectful, gracious and workable  public facilities  - truly and uniquely ‘cutting edge’. Incidentally ,to my knowledge, although the design I suppose, did to some eyes, have the resemblance to a wedding cake, that was purely coincidental - avant garde yes but remember it was, then, as they all were, tri-functional,( now the more so); it’s business covering the entire spectrum of human emotions which it’s designers would need to take into account. In spite of its general association with ‘happy events’ ..not all business was ‘happy’. 
Modern design but a lot of wood and comfortable materials used taking away, any clinical starkness. Modern, ‘showcase’ facilities, for all Concerned.

Throughput of users would need to be considered in its planning (a distinct advantage in literally, ‘building the Office from the plans upwards’  as mixing marriage parties with distraught families present registering deaths would surely be inappropriate.
Even on the marriage side, probably  uniquely at that time,  parties weren’t stacking up in public streets as is very often the case where ROs have been carved from other local Govt buildings, such as Town Halls. Tucked away as ‘ The Wedding Cake’ was, it provided privacy for all concerned - essentially, it’s own, dedicated approach and grounds with eminently workable car park and drop off facilities. Then separate entrances and exits for those with profoundly differing and more sobering, business there.Yes it worked as the hub of a local, Govt  Registration system which was both legally necessary but  in its less sober work of conducting marriages, was also very popular. 
It’s in the nature of ANY  popular, publicly accessible, facility with appointment systems that it’s operating procedures  need to be organised, or chaos will reign. It’s how it’s done and THAT  building provided the best chance of reaching an optimum ‘flow’ with pleasure and dignity. It was also true and I’d guess, probably  still is, that people favoured such as  traditional, Saturday marriage  ceremonies which inevitably  makes control of the process more challenging though again, down to The Office’s Staff complement  and systems in place. But public ‘Sausage machine’? No and during my short career in The Service, I attended  literally thousands of marriages both at our Surrey Place premises and many, churches in the Sheffield area where their own ministers weren’t legally  authorised to conduct the, obligatory, civil (legalising) part of weddings, making the presence of a Registrar essential to comply with the Law of England and Wales. 
Apologies for the fairly lengthy tour through the nuts and bolts of some of what we did, they still do but I hope it serves to explain why, personally I thought the super-looking RO at Surrey Place helped us do the job so much better and whatever some may think, give the public a much better experience than other RO buildings in E&W. Moreover, why, when I heard the news of it’s closure.... worse, destruction, I was struck by such  a tragic loss of a great facility which placed Sheffield very much ‘on the map’ and a building which, with such social and architectural importance, should, quite to the contrary,  have been the subject of a statutory preservation order.
Bad call Sheffield, you let down the community but I guess the temptation of receiving money for ‘underused’ real estate was more important than the foregoing considerations.

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