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Pictures - Photos of the Cambridge Street redevelopment


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10 minutes ago, 31dec1966 said:

Is the "Tap and tankard" the old Sportsmans Arms?   Never understand why pub names are changed.

It is, it was some spotty Herbert who thought it would draw the younger end in, I've never gone in a pub because it had a great name " Slug and Lettuce, Frog and Parrot" just stupid names, what was wrong with their original names which always meant something or someone.

Old pubs altered beyond all recognition, stools that high you need a safety net, I like to be comfortable in a pub and not look stupid trying to raise my body onto a four foot high stool.

 

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I'll skip over the names, but do take issue over the stools.  Tall stools allow seating at the bar, or alternatively tall tables that can be stood at.  Normal height seats lower your head and force standing members of your group to tower and lean over you.  Besides which, if you put a normal seat at the bar they'll think it's Jimmy Crankie after a pint!😲

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1 hour ago, MartinR said:

I'll skip over the names, but do take issue over the stools.  Tall stools allow seating at the bar, or alternatively tall tables that can be stood at.  Normal height seats lower your head and force standing members of your group to tower and lean over you.  Besides which, if you put a normal seat at the bar they'll think it's Jimmy Crankie after a pint!😲

I could never understand why people sit at the bar and why have tall tables? For over two hundred years proper stools or chairs have been adequate as were tables to suit, then again another bright spark comes up with the idea of high tables with stools to match and normal seats are in their very being normal and easy to access, I can still remember landlords telling “ Bar Flies “ to find a seat as they were taking up room thus hindering other customers being served

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Well tall stools have been called bar stools since at least the 1970s, based on personal experience.  If you have a group of people standing at the bar (particularly a traditional long one), but one or two in the group can't stand for some reason, then it makes sense.  Historically it was often ladies (well once they were allowing into the "public"), but it could be the elderly or infirm.  The tall tables are to deal with your "bar fly" issue, the group can move away from the bar but remain standing.

Ultimately, if you don't like them look for a table or go into the room.

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Guest leksand
16 hours ago, tozzin said:

It is, it was some spotty Herbert who thought it would draw the younger end in, I've never gone in a pub because it had a great name " Slug and Lettuce, Frog and Parrot" just stupid names, what was wrong with their original names which always meant something or someone.

Old pubs altered beyond all recognition, stools that high you need a safety net, I like to be comfortable in a pub and not look stupid trying to raise my body onto a four foot high stool.

 

Bluff.

I'm not certain about this & perhaps somebody can confirm whether it was called the Tap & Tankard before, but wasn't the name revised when Kelham Island took it on? I expect that the name was actually chosen to highlight the fact that it was a traditional pub amidst, well, Cambridge Street. Sportsman, after all, is one of the most common, if not blandest, of Sheffield's generic names - although perhaps Tozzin can elucidate as to a specific reason why this one was named as it was.

16 hours ago, 31dec1966 said:

Never understand why pub names are changed.

Well, historically name changes were relatively common. Some tenants carried names with them when they switched houses. If memory serves that's why the Union just up the road was at one time rechristened the Albert (string 'em up eh Tozzin) or the London & Birmingham became the Fleur-de-Lis (deep breaths Tozzin, deep breaths). Masonic associations of landlords often influenced naming and any switch there would usually result in a premises name change. Breweries might alter names that alluded to former owners upon aquisition of a property. Changes in road names or prominent landmarks nearby also frequently brought about alterations. When well known pubs were demolished, not to be rebuilt, the name might migrate (often with associated clubs) to other premises nearby. Alternatively, when pubs were rebuilt old names were sometimes abandoned and new names applied (the Athol, for example). Many names were informal and simply reflected something distinctive about a premises, so it might be the case that something as trivial as a change of advertising could bring about a new name. I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that good, old fashioned, sycophancy - particularly in the later Victorian era - has removed plenty of distinctive, peculiar names with local and historic resonance in favour of rather less interesting alternatives.

You'll often find in beer and pub print the indirect inference that illiterate grocers had detailed knowledge of medieval heraldry. I think that this tends to tell more about the author of such material than the subject. I find it is generally the same writers who condemn any alteration by reflex, probably not due to any real conviction, but simply because it provides easy inches. It is certainly not the case that all new names are vacuous and, indeed, a few indicate depths of historical knowledge far greater in the dedicator than any of their critics.

OK, axe grinding over - top marks if you got this far.

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1 hour ago, leksand said:

Bluff.

I'm not certain about this & perhaps somebody can confirm whether it was called the Tap & Tankard before, but wasn't the name revised when Kelham Island took it on? I expect that the name was actually chosen to highlight the fact that it was a traditional pub amidst, well, Cambridge Street. Sportsman, after all, is one of the most common, if not blandest, of Sheffield's generic names - although perhaps Tozzin can elucidate as to a specific reason why this one was named as it was.

Well, historically name changes were relatively common. Some tenants carried names with them when they switched houses. If memory serves that's why the Union just up the road was at one time rechristened the Albert (string 'em up eh Tozzin) or the London & Birmingham became the Fleur-de-Lis (deep breaths Tozzin, deep breaths). Masonic associations of landlords often influenced naming and any switch there would usually result in a premises name change. Breweries might alter names that alluded to former owners upon aquisition of a property. Changes in road names or prominent landmarks nearby also frequently brought about alterations. When well known pubs were demolished, not to be rebuilt, the name might migrate (often with associated clubs) to other premises nearby. Alternatively, when pubs were rebuilt old names were sometimes abandoned and new names applied (the Athol, for example). Many names were informal and simply reflected something distinctive about a premises, so it might be the case that something as trivial as a change of advertising could bring about a new name. I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that good, old fashioned, sycophancy - particularly in the later Victorian era - has removed plenty of distinctive, peculiar names with local and historic resonance in favour of rather less interesting alternatives.

You'll often find in beer and pub print the indirect inference that illiterate grocers had detailed knowledge of medieval heraldry. I think that this tends to tell more about the author of such material than the subject. I find it is generally the same writers who condemn any alteration by reflex, probably not due to any real conviction, but simply because it provides easy inches. It is certainly not the case that all new names are vacuous and, indeed, a few indicate depths of historical knowledge far greater in the dedicator than any of their critics.

OK, axe grinding over - top marks if you got this far.

My wife is in the process of trying to tie my hands behind my back and is now smashing my keyboard BUT before she succeeds , The Five Alls, The Labour In Vain, The Elephant The Swan With Two Necks (a corruption of a swan with two nicks) great names Im sure you will agree.

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Guest leksand
On 14/04/2021 at 11:26, tozzin said:

My wife is in the process of trying to tie my hands behind my back and is now smashing my keyboard BUT before she succeeds , The Five Alls, The Labour In Vain, The Elephant The Swan With Two Beaks (a corruption of a swan with two necks) great names Im sure you will agree.


Personally I don't lean towards names which play on virtue or veneration as Five Alls or Labour in Vain could be seen to. Of a similar ilk from nearby, Providence Provides is as bad a name as I've seen and replaced perhaps the most notable name the area has ever had (which would almost certainly be condemned as gimmickery today). Swan with two nicks/necks is a nice enough name (I'd say preferable to beaks), but aside from vague recollections of a decent pub in Stockport, doesn't have any particular resonance. The Elephant; theres nothing wrong with it, but I can't fix it to a place so it really doesn't mean much to me. That said, I'm not sure there is any more merit to the names-without-experience that I have a hankering for, such as the Platelayers Arms.

Overall I don't think a pub's name is anywhere near as important as the pub itself. The best pub I have ever been to only went by the name that I still think of it as for a little over a decade. I obviously have an attachment to, what is now, a former name, but the name wasn't what made me go there again and again. Likewise, it wasn't the reversion to an earlier name that caused me to stop going.

I can appreciate that people may have an objection to wholesale rethemeing of a pub, particularly one which holds particular memories for them. However, it's incorrect to think that that is a new phenomenom. Also, if that is to occur then it's probably more respectful to rename than not in most instances. Would Henry's have been right as the Barleycorn? Was the switch from the Red Lion to Nell's justifiable? Is it proper that the Yellow Lion was lost because someone saw fit to "cash in" on the change of road name (if that is how it happened)? Was there actually any genuine heritage in the application of the names considered to be the original in the first place? I'm not sure there are often answers which can be anything more than conjectural.

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