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Gleadless - Photo Thread


DaveH

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Down the hill from the towers is Herdings Park. this is an actual park but is probably better known these days as the tram terminus. A funny place for the tram to end, giving Herdings residents a direct route to the town centre, Meadowhall and hillsborough (handy on saturday afternoon for Owls fans) but it was originally planned as Sheffields "Park and Ride" connection to the City. The old Norton Aerodrome (see post #1) would have made an ideal parking area for this.

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In the 1990's the decision was taken to demolish one of the towers which was considered unsafe, so now there were only 2

The remaining 2 towers were fully renovated, given extra security in the form of a fence and given posh if not pretentious new names like Queen Anne's Court and Queen Elizabeth's Court. Presumably this was also a move from rented council flats to privately owned flats.

Today the 2 towers (twin towers???) still stand proud high above the estate visible for miles around.

The 2 towers as they appear today

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Between the shops, the missing demolished tower and the park is the old Herdings farm house which dates back centuries. In recent times the building has been home to the local youth club. Sadly a recent fire has now almost destroyed this historic building and it is boarded up awaiting its fate. Also sadly. I never took a picture of it in 1971 when it was still in good condition. This building has been the subject of one of mt mystery locations in the "only the gateposts are left" thread as the original gateposts to the entrance are still there.

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Showing just the present 2 towers, Herdings Tram Terminus as a then & now.

As previously, Then is October 1971 and Now is January 2009

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Following the footpath down past the missing tower and the burnt out youth club takes us over the tram line and down past Herdings Park on the lright and Herdings junior school on the left until it meets a lay by on Norton Avenue where a bloke with a van sells eggs, potatoes and other stuff. Across Norton Avenue is the old aerodrome which is where we started in post #1

Between the shops and the burnt out youth club is this footpath past the maisonettes which leads back towards Leighton Road, Castelayne nursing home and the bus terminus.

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Back at the junction of Leighton Road and Norton Avenue is this boozer which has been there since the estate was built.

Today it is called CUTLERS but I am sure it was originally called "THE CUTLERS ARMS" and was a Whitbread house.

Most pictures of the pub are taken from the road junction to show the frant entrance and signs but this one is taken from back along Leighton Road to show that newly built extension at the back. I wanted to show this as a few years ago there was an explosion at the Cutlers which involved a prank with fireworks that went badly wrong. I feel sure the extension was built as a result of damage caused by this incident but as I don't drink up there I am not 100% sure.

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A few weeks ago I was contacted by another member by PM about the prospects of salvaging some of the material from gleadless.net which is now no longer available as this site is now just a link to the St. Lukes Hospice site.

I have tried to reclaim some of the gleadless.net material with a view to including it on Sheffield History, copyright permitting, by using things like the internet archive and wayback machine but without much luck.

However, when I had been on gleadless.net I had downloaded some stuff for my own use and this has been stuck in a folder on my hard drive for a while.

I have these OS maps of the gleadless area, and from the OS maps on our own site already I know they only have a 50 year copyright so I am fairly safe with this one.

OS map of Gleadless, 1899

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A few weeks ago I was contacted by another member by PM about the prospects of salvaging some of the material from gleadless.net which is now no longer available as this site is now just a link to the St. Lukes Hospice site.

I have tried to reclaim some of the gleadless.net material with a view to including it on Sheffield History, copyright permitting, by using things like the internet archive and wayback machine but without much luck.

However, when I had been on gleadless.net I had downloaded some stuff for my own use and this has been stuck in a folder on my hard drive for a while.

I have these OS maps of the gleadless area, and from the OS maps on our own site already I know they only have a 50 year copyright so I am fairly safe with this one.

OS map of Gleadless, 1899

To follow that one here is a similar map of the same area and to the same scale but in 1924

Originally I had downloaded these maps from gleadless.net with a view to turning the white bits transparent and turning the black ink a different colour on each map and then overlaying them so that you could see the changes from one map to the other straight away. Needless to say I never got round to it.

OS map of Gleadless, 1924

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To follow that one here is a similar map of the same area and to the same scale but in 1924

Originally I had downloaded these maps from gleadless.net with a view to turning the white bits transparent and turning the black ink a different colour on each map and then overlaying them so that you could see the changes from one map to the other straight away. Needless to say I never got round to it.

OS map of Gleadless, 1924

Finally we have a map from 1948, still well out of OS copyright.

Notice that the Herdings estate is stillmissing, as it is from our 1950's maps elsewhere on the site. This was not built until the very late 50's so the maps could well be still just in copyright.

OS map of Gleadless, 1948

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gleadless.net also had as one of its sections a complete set of artwork by Charles Ashmore, a silversmiths engraver who did the line drawings and artwork for Harold Armitages book "Chantrey Land" first published in 1910 which is a history of Norton and the surrounding area.

Charles Ashmore has a road named after him just outside the Chesterfield Road end of Graves Park.

I downloaded and kept this picture from gleadless.net as it shows my 3x great grandfather, Thomas Higginbottom, as drawn by Charles Ashmore when he was 91 years old, just before he died in 1908. There is a piece about him in Chantrey Land because he lived to such an old age and because, having known the famous sculptor Chantrey personally he received a life pension from his estate.

As I have the book it contains all Charles Ashmore's drawings, many of them scenes of what is now southern Sheffield and I could easily reproduce them all (copyright permitting) and recreate that particular piece of gleadless.net here at Sheffield History if members would like to see them.

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As far as I know all my original 1971 pictures are now on the site in this thread and also as then and now's in the then and now discussion topic.

Copies of all of them are available together as a single post in the Then & Now Showcase

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The day we lost a bit of the Sheffield Skyline

(Frame captures from a video shot from the far side of Herdings Park)

This is the middle block. You can just make out a figure in white running away from the dust cloud

When the dust cleared, all that was left was:

I went back the next day to video the clear up:

Floors collapsed one on top of the other:

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Guest transit

The day we lost a bit of the Sheffield Skyline

(Frame captures from a video shot from the far side of Herdings Park)

This is the middle block. You can just make out a figure in white running away from the dust cloud

When the dust cleared, all that was left was:

I went back the next day to video the clear up:

Floors collapsed one on top of the other:

...any ideas why did they demolished THAT particular block ,(Supertram?) and leave the other two ? Why not "re-vamp" it like they (other 2) are now ? :rolleyes:

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...any ideas why did they demolished THAT particular block ,(Supertram?) and leave the other two ? Why not "re-vamp" it like they (other 2) are now ? :rolleyes:

I always thought it was a bit stupid to revamp 2 and demolish the third, although I have heard stories that the block demolished was structurally unsound and therefore not worth doing up. How true that is I don't know but it certainly looked better to me with those 3 towers there rather than just the 2.

Many thanks to Markbaby for providing these images of the demolition of the third tower.

Do we have a date when this demolition took place?

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I always thought it was a bit stupid to revamp 2 and demolish the third, although I have heard stories that the block demolished was structurally unsound and therefore not worth doing up. How true that is I don't know but it certainly looked better to me with those 3 towers there rather than just the 2.

Many thanks to Markbaby for providing these images of the demolition of the third tower.

Do we have a date when this demolition took place?

after 6/4/95 :)

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after 6/4/95 :)

From your picture this is clearly the case, and it is also apparent that the 3 old towers were still there after the Supertram had already started to run to Herdings Park, so to answer transit, it cannot have been demolished to make way for something to do with the Supertram as he tentatively questioned in a previous post.

However as Markbaby had actually witnessed and filmed the demolition I wondered if perhaps he could put the exact date to it.

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From your picture this is clearly the case, and it is also apparent that the 3 old towers were still there after the Supertram had already started to run to Herdings Park, so to answer transit, it cannot have been demolished to make way for something to do with the Supertram as he tentatively questioned in a previous post.

However as Markbaby had actually witnessed and filmed the demolition I wondered if perhaps he could put the exact date to it.

Just checked the start of the tape and the date code was 13.10.96 which was a Sunday.

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Just checked the start of the tape and the date code was 13.10.96 which was a Sunday.

Thanks for the date on that Markbaby it helps a lot as me and Stuart0742 have previously discussed the date of this demolition, not in print on this site but over a pint or two in the pub on more than one occasion and have until now been unable to come up with a definate answer.

So now we know it was 13 October 1996.

Any clues as to the reason why they only knocked the one block down but left the other two and modernised them?

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Here's a try at a new way of getting images.

The picture is taken as a screen capture from Google Street, taking the required measures from Google of keeping their logo and copyright intact.

It's what Stuart0742 referred to as "armchair photography", basically it means I couldn't be bothered to go out and take the picture myself :o

The picture shows the Somerfield Supermarket on Whites Lane Gleadless.

A very ordinary looking building but a building with a piece of unusual history which I was reminded of today while making an entry into another thread about acts which have appeared at the City Hall.

Building of the Charnock Estate began in 1937 but was interupted by the war and was not completed until well into the 1950's. It is on the site of Charnock Park which originally had its own Hall (Charnock Hall) and farm.

In 1957 Arnold and Zena Fidler had this building built. They were ballroom dancers and built it as a ballroom and called it the "AZENA" (a contraction of their names, Arnold & ZENA) It was run as a ballroom until their retirement in the 1970's when it became a supermarket as it is today. They died in 2003.

However, the date which made the AZENA BALLROOM famous was Tuesday 12 February 1963 when THE BEATLES made their first ever appearance in the City at a time when they were already well known locally but Beatlemania had not yet arrived.

The booking of The Beatles had been secured by Sheffield's own Peter Stringfellow, and he had got them for the pricely sum of £85. Originally they were to have appeared at St. Aidens Church Hall on City Road opposite the end of Manor Lane but the expected large crowd lead the local police to advise that it should be moved to another venue which could contain the larger than usual turn out, and that's where the Azena came in.

There appears to be no record of what they sung or what they sounded like, but, -

1. They also sang at the Astoria Ballroom, Oldham later the same day, and, -

2. The previous day they had been at EMI Abbey Road Studios in Studio 2 recording their debut album "Please Please Me". They had recorded 10 new tracks to make up this 14 track album. They had a limited studio time to do this and did the album in about 3 lots of 3 hour sessions that day. It is well recorded that John Lennon had a cold and a sore throat and got through the day on cigarettes, tea, milk and a packet of "Zubes" despite having to roar out the words to "Twist and Shout".

From this we can conclude that

1. They probably sung their latest hit, "Please Please Me" and other hits from the album of the same title they had recorded only the day before.

2. If they could be heard at all above those local screaming fans, then they probably didn't sound at their best.

Unless of course we have any members who were actually lucky enough to have attended this event and can tell us what it was really like.

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Gleadless Junior School on Hollinsend Road.

My son and youngest daughter went to this school between 1987 and 2000 when Mr. New was the headmaster. the school had a reputation due to the work of Mr. New and Mr. Faraday for producing great musical shows and it was responsible for getting my son to play recorder, and then clarinet to grade 5 before he went to secondary school>

I thought there was a date stone on this building but if there was it must now be covered by that new looking bit in the middle.

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