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Chapel Walk in Sheffield City Centre


Serendipity

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CHAPEL WALK

Until recently I would walk though Chapel Walk to get the 52 bus. One morning in August I noticed a guy taking pictures of a shop doorway, and it turned out he was photographing the bloke slumped in the doorway who was surrounded by drug paraphernalia. Our amateur photographer had a shop on Chapel Walk, said that this was affecting his business, and he bombards the council and the police with these pictures and will continue to do so until the "zombie problem" is resolved. 

I remember Monsoon, Accessorize, Oasis etc down there. Older people talk about record shops, Richard Shops, a model shop and so on. I find Chapel Walk scary now. It is very sad; it smells of wee and it doesn't feel safe anymore. 

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On 01/11/2018 at 10:31, Serendipity said:

CHAPEL WALK

Until recently I would walk though Chapel Walk to get the 52 bus. One morning in August I noticed a guy taking pictures of a shop doorway, and it turned out he was photographing the bloke slumped in the doorway who was surrounded by drug paraphernalia. Our amateur photographer had a shop on Chapel Walk, said that this was affecting his business, and he bombards the council and the police with these pictures and will continue to do so until the "zombie problem" is resolved. 

I remember Monsoon, Accessorize, Oasis etc down there. Older people talk about record shops, Richard Shops, a model shop and so on. I find Chapel Walk scary now. It is very sad; it smells of wee and it doesn't feel safe anymore. 


I wonder if things have improved with this situation.

To be honest I walked down Chapel Walk recently and to me it's lost all it's appeal.

Just don't see the need for a dark, grim corridor of shops like that


Would rather have an open space

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I'm of an opposite view SH, we already have had SO much of old Sheffield disappear i'd hate to see it flattened.

 

On an aside I work in the centre of town and the problem with rough sleeping drug users has gotten a lot worse in the last few years and during lockdown it is far more visible.

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On 05/06/2020 at 15:52, Sheffield History said:


I wonder if things have improved with this situation.

To be honest I walked down Chapel Walk recently and to me it's lost all it's appeal.

Just don't see the need for a dark, grim corridor of shops like that


Would rather have an open space

Not a very good statement on a history site, “ would rather have an open space” we should be positive about these old thoroughfares of Sheffield, the obvious answer would be to erect gates at either end and lock them at 18:00 until 07:00 every day, with a good height to stop idiots climbing in

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2 hours ago, tozzin said:

Not a very good statement on a history site, “ would rather have an open space” we should be positive about these old thoroughfares of Sheffield, the obvious answer would be to erect gates at either end and lock them at 18:00 until 07:00 every day, with a good height to stop idiots climbing in

 

I'm not really talking about anything happening overnight though. I'm just talking about the absolute lack of charm or anything of interest down there these days.

Many parts of it are empty

It leads to an extremely underwhelming experience compared to previously.

It would make a great independent shopping place but the shops on there just don't seem to fit that.

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Each and everyone of us who has purchased on-line or/and from out of town shopping centres are responsible for the demise of a Sheffield City Centre, let alone Chapel Walk. However the way things are moving I see the likes of Chapel Walk becoming re-born.  Hallam University has started to move into the C/C, and along with the plethora of residents and public sector employees it won’t be short of prospective customers. 

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Speaking generally here, not just about Sheffield: the attitude of councils to shoppers is one of the biggest reasons for the destruction of town centres.  If you drive to your local mall then you park for free and walk around the shops under cover.  Usually you can even take a shopping trolley to your car.  Now compare the town centre experience.  Let's start with the attitude tahe we don't want cars, eveyone should use a bus.  Right, with toddlers or if buying more than one bag of shopping?  OK, you find a car park; how long are you going to be?  Is the machine working?  Have you got enough change?  It costs HOW MUCH!  Now you shop, but the queue holds you up and you arrive back 5 minutes late.  The "Yellow Peril", "Blue Meanies" or who ever have just slapped a ticket on you.  Of course you can park in a supermarket carpark, but if you want to go to another shop make sure you move the car elsewhere before leaving the site.

This is not a new observation.  Our Victorian and Georgian forebears worked out that a shopping arcade is more pleasant than a rainy street.  True there are some modern town centre shopping malls, some with attached parking but watch the charges and times.

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MartinR, you’ve just described Meadow Hall mate, whenever Sheffield City Centre re-discovers itself Chapel Walk will fit in nicely. It’s destined to be a student meeting place, worry not, even our totally inept City Council is not irremovable.

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Meadow Hall, Trafford Centre, Merry Hill, Bluewater for the biggies I can think of off-hand, then lots of "out of town retail parks" and malls.  They are what people want and are easy to use.  Councils need to stop fighting the general public and think how to handle the issue.  It's a country-wide issue.  Oh, and I forgot to mention town/city-centre rents and rates.

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I think the years parts of Chapel Walk was covered in scaffolding have hardly helped the situation. Personally, I have never bought anything online... and have no intention of ever doing so!....That said, I haven't been in "town" since we began lockdowns and when I last walked down the Walk it was ( even with the scaffolding removed) an unattractive place, Similar places in our old "rival"  Leeds are, by and large, much more welcoming. We don't make the best of our City Centres past....which is why the Council has been known for its being rather "Philistine"!

My happy memories of the Walk  in the 60s/70s are of it being something of a trendy place, with a great coffee bar ,full of young people , many with boy/girl friends, enjoying a coffee ,having sampled, or about to sample, the top 20 records in the listening booths at Cann the Music Man's....You can't buy that pleasure online!.

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I buy many things online, however they are the things that I would never go out and shop for, my time is exclusively reserved for me and mine, not for a shopping trip that would most likely end up empty handed and stressed.

 

 

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Apart from food/drink/petrol I tend to buy very little these days...but when I do I prefer to actually see what I am buying in reality and, importantly, be served by a person... even if its just at the check out. Meeting people ( lockdowns permitting) is a part of my life. Many people I know live on their own and a quick pleasantry might be the only human contact they have all day.

Back to topic....Wasn't the scaffolding erected on the Walk part of the work needed to convert some of the buildings into into student flats?

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On 05/06/2020 at 15:43, Sheffield History said:

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I wonder what this fella bought from Bradley's Records?

 

Howlin' Wind, Graham Parker and the Rumour..........it's me !!

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12 hours ago, 31dec1966 said:

Howlin' Wind, Graham Parker and the Rumour..........it's me !!

It’s a real shock when that happens isn’t it? If you google the Stone House Courtyard photo, the guy dated in the centre is me, the girl an the front catting away is my wife.

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1 minute ago, DaveJC said:

It’s a real shock when that happens isn’t it? If you google the Stone House Courtyard photo, the guy dated in the centre is me, the girl an the front catting away is my wife.

Where did  ‘dated’ come from, I wrote ‘seated’?

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6 minutes ago, DaveJC said:

Where did  ‘dated’ come from, I wrote ‘seated’?

This iPad is now taking me over, ‘catting’ instead of ‘chatting’.

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I haven't lived in Sheffield for 46 years but remember Chapel Walk. We often used to go down there on a Saturday morning and I had a friend who worked at Cann's the music shop. I also remember taking part in services and concerts at the Victoria Hall at the bottom of it. 

It's brought back many happy memories hearing about it again!

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I've just heard that Chapel Walk is built over graves and that there's been reports of hauntings

And in particular people reporting ghosts reaching up and grabbing their legs and night and tripping them over?

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7 minutes ago, Sheffield History said:



I've just heard that Chapel Walk is built over graves and that there's been reports of hauntings

And in particular people reporting ghosts reaching up and grabbing their legs and night and tripping them over?

Which church yard stood there?

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32 minutes ago, tozzin said:

Which church yard stood there?



Good question!

Not sure - was there one?

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13 minutes ago, Sheffield History said:



Good question!

Not sure - was there one?

I doubt it so why would there be any graves there, in the 19th century the area was bounded by Alsop Field and the working town full of small industries from horn and bone merchants to grinders and cutlers, so if there were any graves I would be surprised.

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