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The Royal Victoria Hotel in Sheffield


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Royal Victorial Hotel Sheffield.jpg

THE ROYAL VICTORIA HOTEL SHEFFIELD

My first time down at the spider bridge this week and I took this photo there at the entrance from an angle I've never seen the hotel from before. I've got a couple of quick questions about this hotel.

Was it once called the Royal Victoria Hotel or has it always been just The Victoria?

Also - I've never seen the hotel built into the brickwork like you can see on the bottom of the hotel here with the windows coming out of the stonework overlooking the river? Does anyone know what those rooms are? And was the current hotel building always how it was since it was first built? I was wondering why the hotel seemed to be built into the stonework and then another seemingly totally different building lays on top?

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I think it was the end of the line for Sheffield's other railway station and the hotel was named the Royal Victoria Hotel.

Without researching it, my recollection is that the trains came into the base of the hotel and people had direct access to the hotel.

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The line was called the " Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway"...Sheffield was then a very important railway centre especially after the railway built its extension to London and changed its name to the Great Central Railway. I was a regular visitor to the Royal Vic as a  company representative to the meetings of the Sheffield and District Rollers and Tilters Association

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Stayed there once about 1961.  My only memory was my thinking the bathtub being nearly large enough to swim in, and great fawcets that spewed MASSIVE amounts of water filling the tub in no time at all.  Sure beat filling the tin bath from the Ascot water heater.

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The hotel plans are in the National Archives at Kew, but sadly not yet digitised and so unavailable online.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3079689

The basement rooms may have been storerooms, staff quarters, or something else, but the plans would probably have the answer? Some photos of the basement / cellars here, from a firm who did some damp proofing work some time ago, but not very revealing?

http://www.tracebasementsystems.co.uk/sheffield-cellars/

i don’t get to the National Archives very often, but I’ll add the record to my readers ticket as a reminder. If there’s anything of interest, I’ll take a copy and post it here...

 

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FTWqVPPXEAUVsMa.jpg

 

 

 

The Royal Victoria is steeped in history, it is the oldest and most prestigious hotel in Sheffield opened in 1862!

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The hotel was built in 1862 and both the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire and Great Northern Railways subscribed to it. It was always a stand alone structure and passengers from the station had to pass out via the ticket barriers to get to the Hotel. At one time it was very black with smoke and when they cleaned it up, they left a small patch to show how dirty it was once!

I have been told that my grandmother Alice Appleyard worked as a cleaner there.

The picture below shows it in 1969.

1969 23-10 Sheffield Vic Stn front.jpg

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On 23/05/2022 at 14:55, Sheffield History said:

FTce4lqWIAEEZjD.jpg

The many arches, three of them shown here on Furnival Road, my father told me that many of them were used to ripen bananas, seems they are just sold in their green unripe state now.

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On 21/04/2018 at 08:57, Sheffield History said:

Royal Victorial Hotel Sheffield.jpg

THE ROYAL VICTORIA HOTEL SHEFFIELD

My first time down at the spider bridge this week and I took this photo there at the entrance from an angle I've never seen the hotel from before. I've got a couple of quick questions about this hotel.

Was it once called the Royal Victoria Hotel or has it always been just The Victoria?

Also - I've never seen the hotel built into the brickwork like you can see on the bottom of the hotel here with the windows coming out of the stonework overlooking the river? Does anyone know what those rooms are? And was the current hotel building always how it was since it was first built? I was wondering why the hotel seemed to be built into the stonework and then another seemingly totally different building lays on top?

Yes, it's always been known as the Royal Victoria Hotel.

I understand that Queen Victoria (who it was named after) stayed there and so has every member of the main royal family since.

The sunk in windows in question are the Hotel Gym, the large white ones the men's toilets, the ones further on are the ladies toilets. So not as exiting as you had hoped.

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What's more interesting about the above picture is the bit you can't see in it. Some mysterious tunnels that connect to the river. What were they used for?

 

Under the Royal Victoria Hotel.jpg

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The hotel was originally named the New Victoria Hotel, to distinguish it from all the others that existed at that time.  The 1896 plan shows that the tunnels were in the vicinity of the stables and hay loft - maybe for delivery of hay and removal of "other stuff" by boat? Though that seems like a difficult way to do it, even if you were trying to hide the operation from paying guests.

1522572075_NewVictoriaHotel1862plan.png.f05fd68a22fd39d4e6e65569ec549614.png

130882463_NewVictoriaHotel1862.thumb.png.6ddfeb8bbe070efb0dee5046d6e8c7e6.png

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I have never heard of the Vic being described as the "New" Victoria Hotel at all.

I believe that this is just the newspaper describing a new building as in, "a new City Hall" or  "a new Town Hall", and doesn't mean that the word "New" is incorporated in their names.

It would also be interesting to see the proper plans for the station itself because the layout was never like that at any time during the 20th Century.

I knew the station well and every old photo I have seen fits with what I remember, which is completely different to that shown on the plan.

This shows the frontage of the station only slightly past the main entrance whereas it actually extended  to the Furnival Road wall on the Approach Road and then across Furrnival Road with the parcels office on the other side of the road. The Station Platforms and buildings carried on even further and the tiny building shown on the drawing could not possibly be a station.

This was built as a main station to replace Wicker Station on Saville Street and when the Victoria Station opened, passenger traffic was moved to it and Wicker Station was then used as simply a goods Station.

Victoria station was a smaller building than Wicker station even as I remember it but was very much larger than shown on this plan.

It could be that newspaper reporters in those days could be as guilty as those of today for getting their facts wrong.

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Victoria station original started as a single platform, so the small station is correct at that time. It had a canopy on the front of the buildings which was later removed too.  It was later extended and included a roof spanning the platforms. Later on the roof was removed, leaving only large stone pillars spanning the tracks, which survived till it's demolition.   

image.png.f91be2027b694f1f1233e42d80b51e0a.png

image.png.7d91704f49c5a778b7331096ab52bc0c.png

Demolition of Sheffield Victoria Station, 1982.jpg

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Photo 1 was quite a surprise and news to me

Photo 2 of the frontage was a surprise too because they obviously knocked it down and rebuilt it later which I never knew.

Photo 2 of the frontage still does not tally with the drawing of the plan so they may have built it 3 times.

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Surely the Victoria station was built to replace Bridgehouses station? The Wicker was the Midland Railway station, this was the MS&L station. Bridgehouses then went on to become the goods station.

Nigel L

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4 minutes ago, Lemmy117 said:

Surely the Victoria station was built to replace Bridgehouses station? The Wicker was the Midland Railway station, this was the MS&L station. Bridgehouses then went on to become the goods station.

Nigel L

Yes that's true, but Bridgehouses was over the other side of the Wicker arches, not next to the Victoria Hotel.

There were lots of construction work to the station. The new platform was added in 1875. And a third platform and the goods loops in 1889. Wicker arches was widened to make four tracks. In 1906-08 another line was added in the front of the station, meaning new buildings in the front, the odd looking shed that lasted till the end. Done very cheaply actually. At the same the subways were added and platform 1 bay line was added as well as the cattle/parcels dock, just below Number 3 signal box.

Number one platform line was removed sometime after 1965. But the platform was still there.

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My earliest memory of the Vic would be in the  immediate post war years…accompanying my Mum to stay with her Aunt and Uncle in Grimsby. The lift from the Wicker was where we accessed the station  after getting off the tram in the Wicker. Once the lift was exited there was a short walk, with a train siding to the left ,and the hotel to the right .Luggage had usually been taken the night before and left in a dedicated left luggage spot for us to collect.

My grandfather ,a man of few words, was a driver on the then LNER…and very proud of the company!  He claimed to be a communist yet ,being a member of ASLEF and the NUR at the same time, managed never to go on strike ,claiming “ the revolution isn’t coming out of my ******back pocket”.

As a young lad I spent hours on the station ,at weekends…awaiting a “ kop”, …..which was very rare. My final visit was in the last weeks of the service to Manchester ,with my wife and 2 kids ,when we caught the electric train on our way to Blackpool.

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Here's a stack of pictures all from the March 6 2002 edition of British Railways Illustrated. 

The first shows the passage to the lift. The second the passage to the station from the lift. 3 is the loading ramp and the end of the passage. Pic 4 is the booking office and the way to the trains. 5 is the subway. 6 is the top end of platform one. 7 is the middle section of the same. And the final one is the end of the line of the track scene from platform 2. All pictures are pre 1965.

 

Passage to stairs and lift.jpg

Passage to station.jpg

Loading ramp Victoria.jpg

Station Forcourt and booking office.jpg

Subway under station.jpg

Top end of Platform 1.jpg

Platform 1 and 2.jpg

Bottom end of Platform 1 as seen from 2.jpg

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By the way if anyone is going to visit the National Railway Museum in York. You could ask them to show you the exhibits from the station and gets some pictures. They do have some, it's on their website, but there are no pictures of them there. 

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We used to live in Pitsmoor and the local working men's club always had a trip to Cleethorpes each summer.

We used to go up the steps from the Wicker to the platform.

Every time I drive past I always want to go up them again for old times sake.

I remember when the marshalling yards were empty and we would climb around in the old buildings.

If only we had saved some of the old signs and memorabilia!!!

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Many thanks for procuring those latest photos History Dude.

In the 1950's, I worked for British Railways, was a regular visitor to the Victoria Station and was so sad when it was closed down and demolished.

Brings back lovely memories.

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