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The Hole In The Road Sheffield


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THE HOLE IN THE ROAD FISHTANK

 

 

 

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MEMORIES OF THE HOLE IN THE ROAD

The Shops:

A shoe repair shop

An entrance to Yorkshire Electricity

An underground entrance to C&A

Tobacconist

Sandwich shop ?

People who used to sell posters (laying them on the floor either round the edge or in the middle near the plants)

Stinky toilets

The Fishtank (of course)

The Escalators taking you down

South Yorkshire transport office(timetables)

The small island of plants right in the middle

Instant Images

SWFC Kabin

An entrance to bunker and pratley's TV shop

Tandys

'Decor8' - paint shop (fitzlan square side)

Fruit shop ?

The Hole In The Road was demolished and was filled in by the rubble created from the demolition of Kelvin Flats !

More Coming Shortly..
 

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Jarvis Cocker and Nick Banks of Pulp:

Castle Square is a weird underground market, off Commercial Street, with an open air 'sun roof', known locally as the Hole In The Road. Once it was the meeting place for tramps and down-and-outs-but-on-the-way-ups. Now the authorities want to get rid of it.

Nick: "We've started the Hole In The Road campaign, the council want to fill it in with concrete, which will mean more people getting run over. We can't let them do it. It's all part of a conspiracy to dispense with the town centre all together, and move everything out to Meadowhall (a huge shopping complex known locally as Meadow Hell)."

Jarvis: "See that fish tank in the wall? One of my earliest memories was my mum bringing me here to stop me from moaning when she was doing the shopping. I made a film of it too. Sometimes you get a whispering gallery effect in here, it sounds like someone's talking right in your ear. There used to be benches all the way around the walls and all the old tramps would come here, like a little community centre - and then one morning all the benches had gone, apart from four. It was really sad because they all turned up as usual and just stood there, dazed - their whole world had gone."

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Jarvis Cocker and Nick Banks of Pulp:

Castle Square is a weird underground market, off Commercial Street, with an open air 'sun roof', known locally as the Hole In The Road. Once it was the meeting place for tramps and down-and-outs-but-on-the-way-ups. Now the authorities want to get rid of it.

Nick: "We've started the Hole In The Road campaign, the council want to fill it in with concrete, which will mean more people getting run over. We can't let them do it. It's all part of a conspiracy to dispense with the town centre all together, and move everything out to Meadowhall (a huge shopping complex known locally as Meadow Hell)."

Jarvis: "See that fish tank in the wall? One of my earliest memories was my mum bringing me here to stop me from moaning when she was doing the shopping. I made a film of it too. Sometimes you get a whispering gallery effect in here, it sounds like someone's talking right in your ear. There used to be benches all the way around the walls and all the old tramps would come here, like a little community centre - and then one morning all the benches had gone, apart from four. It was really sad because they all turned up as usual and just stood there, dazed - their whole world had gone."

I know excatly what he means. It was a weird echo like sound especialy if there were not many people around.

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Yeah

and not the best place in the world for that to happen either - especially towards the end of the hole in the road's life when it was allowed to become a run down dangerous eye sore..

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How times changed

It was a shame to see it go to such a bad state before they closed it

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Guest coffee cup

You could gain access to Rackhams and Boots from the Hole in the Road, I am sure Boots was their book dept and I think Rackhams was their food dept.

I also remember a Thorntons Kiosk down there !!

:P:P :P

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Guest wisewoodowl

You could gain access to Rackhams and Boots from the Hole in the Road, I am sure Boots was their book dept and I think Rackhams was their food dept.

I also remember a Thorntons Kiosk down there !!

:P:P:P

The access to Boots was from a different subway; the one at the top of High Street / bottom of Church Street / bottom of Fargate

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Hello. The Hole was filled in in 1994 and I was upset because I felt it made Sheffield unique and exciting to visit. I loved the 'tunnels' and the fact you could get to the shops from under ground. I loved the fish tank, next to which there would always be some entrepreneur flogging his wares. The main ones that I remember are: a bloke selling lighters '3 for a pound' and he had a little rhyme going: "3 for a pound yer lighters. 3 for a pound-come on!", some guy selling these ridiculous foam Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles hats and finally a fella with a load of Disney videos he'd laid out on a rug, the spellings no doubt giving the game away on the authenticity, e.g. Alladin. Priceless.

Does anyone know what happened to the fish?

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ALL this talk about the Hole In The Road then and after what about before. And before you ask i have not altered the photo in any way it's an unused post card, i can only assume it was the manufactures poor atempt at colouring black and white photos.

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That's a fantastic picture - and the shops on the right I've never seen before

See what you mean about the colouring..

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Interesting... those raised flower beds look familiar but I cannot remember the little shops.

Thornton chocolate Kabin was moved into one of the units in The Hole in he road.

Any idea on date?

Must be after January 1962 at that is when The Classic was renamed from The Cartoon

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Also - take a look to the extreme right and the shop where the 4 cafe's was

Also - look at Hyde Park Flats !

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Guest tsavo

This was shot prior to the building of Arundel Gate in the mid 60s. The road below the Thorntons Cabin was Change Alley. The shops on the main block were left to right, Bunker & Pratley,electricals (run by Norman) can't remember, Blaskeys wallpapers & paint, Kendalls, brides & wedding wear, and Corkers, greengrocers. Roger Sherwood (Olympic runner) had the 1st floor area above Corkers as a Ladies Hairdressers. Still trying to remember the Blakes shop.

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I miss the hole in the road

It was different, unique and full of 'characters'

lol

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Guest belfrybum

hello kids i'm new to this,and wanted to add to this that the hole in the road was original,not seen anywhere else,and in my opinion was closed due to the "do gooders" in this world!

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Guest Krystyna

I miss the hole in the road

It was different, unique and full of 'characters'

lol

Hello,

I'm new too, but wanted to say that I honestly cannot think of anything that can provide a prominent and exciting feature in the town centre compared to what the hole in the road provided before 1994. There is the new feature outside the train station, perhaps the winter gardens, maybe the silver balls next to the fountains near the town centre... nothing as striking...

You knew where you was at the Hole, you knew that like a rabbit warren, you could go into a direction to any used part of the centre, such as high street, markets, snig hill, the small old bus station, arundel gate, pond street, midlands bank, rackhams, C&A and the clock on the co-op.... Getting to the inside of the hole was like reaching the epicentre, you was halfway to where you wanted to go, you had chance to breathe the fresh air coming through the hole, and if it was raiing hard you could walk under the sheltered arches and still get to where you wanted. Often, I had a cuppa in restaurant on the 2nd floor of Rackhams, and had a window view where I used to watch down onto all the walkers passing through or buses driving round.

It was a very busy junction of people criss crossing through hte hole and I feel this was what made shopping in the centre good, and kept you dry, certainly better than meadowhall.

Even though I'm 38, sometimes things have to move on, but this is one thing I do miss.

Krystyna

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It was, it was grey tiles. Wasn't it?

I remember the RSPCA dog outside Blaskey's covered head to foot in Save Our Owls stickers and the water bowl had McEwans Export in it, courtesy of a travelling Owl on the way to be beaten 3-0 against York and relegation to division 3.

Also I recall at Xmas, all the DelBoy traders with decorators table, dodgy suitcase et al selling fake Chanel and suchlike which we christened Canal #3. Then at a set signal given by a lad atop the escalator to a lad at the bottom, they would pack everything up and run, with a "Sorry Ladies, must go, the puddings are burning" and they'd leg it down Angel Street, King Street and Dixon Lane. We followed them once for a laugh and they were puffing like mad in the doorway of the pub at the bottom of Dixon Lane when we walked past, they must have thought we were plainclothes or something.

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Hello,

I'm new too, but wanted to say that I honestly cannot think of anything that can provide a prominent and exciting feature in the town centre compared to what the hole in the road provided before 1994. There is the new feature outside the train station, perhaps the winter gardens, maybe the silver balls next to the fountains near the town centre... nothing as striking...

You knew where you was at the Hole, you knew that like a rabbit warren, you could go into a direction to any used part of the centre, such as high street, markets, snig hill, the small old bus station, arundel gate, pond street, midlands bank, rackhams, C&A and the clock on the co-op.... Getting to the inside of the hole was like reaching the epicentre, you was halfway to where you wanted to go, you had chance to breathe the fresh air coming through the hole, and if it was raiing hard you could walk under the sheltered arches and still get to where you wanted. Often, I had a cuppa in restaurant on the 2nd floor of Rackhams, and had a window view where I used to watch down onto all the walkers passing through or buses driving round.

It was a very busy junction of people criss crossing through hte hole and I feel this was what made shopping in the centre good, and kept you dry, certainly better than meadowhall.

Even though I'm 38, sometimes things have to move on, but this is one thing I do miss.

Krystyna

Great post and welcome to the site !

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Those pictures of the excalators brings back memories. I remember the ones near boots and always getting impatiant stuck behind slow people on the escalators. I remember the network of long dimly lit tunnels and the smell of p***. I was still a kid in the 80s my dad used to take me to that restaurant in rackams aswell I remember it being so busy out the window on saturdays

The old picture is fascinating. I can't imagine the area before Arundal gate. I've seen pictures on picturesheffield around howard street area and it looks alien.

edit: This is quoted from the sheffield forum not sure how true it is..

The Underpass outside Boots was built when the Tories were in power in the late 60's. They promised lots of bus shelters as well.

By the time it was built, they were out of power, Labour was back in and Arundel Gate was being pedestrianised, making the underpass pointless.

I always wondered why there was a underground subway leading from boots\fargate area down to the hole in the road when you could just walk along the pavement and get to an esculator to the hole in the road anyway. It was good tho Sheffield centre feels much smaller now without all the underground and hidden places.

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