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Manor Top Subway


Guest wayneybabes

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Guest wayneybabes

does anyone on here remember the old subway on the manor top?. used to link the shops on the precinct (where netto is now) to the chemist. would love to see any photos.

when i was at school, i used to love to walk under there and look at the paintings of various transport vehicles that adorned the walls.

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does anyone on here remember the old subway on the manor top?. used to link the shops on the precinct (where netto is now) to the chemist. would love to see any photos.

when i was at school, i used to love to walk under there and look at the paintings of various transport vehicles that adorned the walls.

Don't think I'd fancy using this subway these days, got to think twice about many such places :angry:

Sad aint it

Don't get DaveH ranting again about such things :)

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Don't think I'd fancy using this subway these days, got to think twice about many such places :angry:

Sad aint it

Don't get DaveH ranting again about such things :)

Stuart was at Manor Top (not the safest of places these days) last week to take a few pictures for then and now trams topic.

While minding his own business and happily taking a few shots he was verbally, if not physically assaulted twice by people who either didn't want to be in his picture or want to know what he was up to so I know where he's coming from on this one.

I'm sure Stuart already knows that the subway has been gone for many years and since the Supertram route was put in it no longer exists. I'm sure that one of the reasons it went was because in its later days it was a very dangerous place to be. It was put in as a safe way to cross a busy road but by the late 1980's it was more dangerous to use the subway than to cross the road which was by then a dual carriageway.

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does anyone on here remember the old subway on the manor top?. used to link the shops on the precinct (where netto is now) to the chemist. would love to see any photos.

when i was at school, i used to love to walk under there and look at the paintings of various transport vehicles that adorned the walls.

Remember it well wayneybabes.

Where Netto is now used to be a Fred Hartleys car spares and accessories place and it had that newsagents kiosk outside that looked a bit like the threepenny bit one in Pond Street.

The subway itself wasn't that big, just an underpass under this section of City Road / Ridgeway Road (the 2 roads seem to merge here now there is no longer a roundabout at Manor Top).

It frequently got vandalised with graffitti which council workmen were very good at removing until someone came up with the idea of decorating the walls. A local school took up the challenge, - it wasn't Norfolk or Hurlfield, I think it may have been the school which is at Manor Top at the Junction of Mansfield Road and Prince of Wales Road which housed the dreaded "school dentist" (Prince of Wales school??). I say "think", I am almost sure, but as this is only a Junior school if their students did it then it was a fantastic piece of artwork for such young children, being more akin to what you would expect from secondary school art students. They must have been a credit to the school.

The idea of the artwork was simple, - as the underpass had replaced a street why not make the inside of the underpass (usually a dark, dingy place) look as though it was a street?

The scene down either side of the underpass consisted of 2 murials showing buildings with a variety of vehicles driving past in opposite directions on either side so it gave the impression of walking down the middle of the road. The vehicles shown consisted of a double decker bus in Sheffield Transport livery, 2 motorcycles (not the easiest thing to draw and paint) and a number of cars, some of them done so well you could tell what make and model they were, - for example there was a VW Beetle which stood out.

It was so good that for a while the graffiti stopped but eventually as things got worse it returned, being placed on and over the murial in such a way as to denograte it (ie people in the original scene developed glasses, beards, missing teeth and rather rude bits added). By the end it was in a terrible state.

As for pictures I am fairly convinced I don't have any and I can't remember seeing any, -unless there was one in The Star when it was first done. As Stuart has already said, although we take lots of pictures in this area an underpass on Manor Top is not the sort of place you start waving a camera about. If I have ever taken one myself it will be with a Minox spy camera so the quality would be very low but I don't think I ever did.

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The subway at Manor Top may be long gone but the one under Ridgeway Road at Hollinsend (between the church and the lateshopper) is still there and still in use.

Church side entrance. Even this underpass is not safe to use at night.

Under the road. Not nicely decorated like the Manor Top and suffering badly from vandalism and graffitti

Gleadless Common side of the road, view looking up Ridgeway Road towards Manor Top.

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The subway at Manor Top may be long gone but the one under Ridgeway Road at Hollinsend (between the church and the lateshopper) is still there and still in use.

Church side entrance. Even this underpass is not safe to use at night.

Very interesting, that as said above, they are not the places to go after dark, however Rotherham Council are still proposing to build these into new road plans. Will they ever learn.

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Very interesting, that as said above, they are not the places to go after dark, however Rotherham Council are still proposing to build these into new road plans. Will they ever learn.

I don't use this subway at night any more.

It is often frequented by youths on bikes in hoodies and blokes doing "dodgy deals" with money changing hands.

I don't know what their deals are but the fact that the underpass sometimes contains discarded, used hypodermic syringes could be a bit of a give away.

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The site of the Manor Top underpass.

It started outside the chemists shop next to the Manor Cinema / Challenge / Sommerfield / Tesco Express (visible in picture)

It ended between the public toilets and Topolis Pizza shop (near the camera viewpoint)

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The site of the kiosk which used to be outside Fred Hartleys and the supermarket

Remember the underpass well, as I had a Saturday job at Fred Hartley's many moons ago - never stopped to take a photograph of it though, when rushing to and from work :rolleyes:

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Remember the underpass well, as I had a Saturday job at Fred Hartley's many moons ago - never stopped to take a photograph of it though, when rushing to and from work :rolleyes:

When Fred Hartleys was there it would probably have been OK for you to use that underpass without having to worry too much about your own personal safety.

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When Fred Hartleys was there it would probably have been OK for you to use that underpass without having to worry too much about your own personal safety.

Yes Dave you are right - dont times change and sometimes, in this instance, not always for the better. :(

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Yes Dave you are right - dont times change and sometimes, in this instance, not always for the better. :(

Sheffield used to have loads of underpasses and subways everywhere, especially in the City centre, and not forgetting our famous and sadly missed "Hole In The Road" with its network of connecting subways to the adjoining streets.

Almost all of them are now gone.

I think the main reasons for this are the high maintainance required, constant vandalism and the fact that they became so dangerous to use thanks to yobbish gangs that many became "no go" areas. It was safer to take your chance being run over by a car crossing the road than use a subway to get "safely" beneath it.

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Guest wayneybabes

just found a shot on picturesheffield. subway barriers are visible

http://www.picturesheffield.com/jpgh/t04208.jpg

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just found a shot on picturesheffield. subway barriers are visible

http://www.picturesheffield.com/jpgh/t04208.jpg

Yes you can see the subway barriers but you have to know the area and know where to look

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Guest transit

Yes you can see the subway barriers but you have to know the area and know where to look

.... treat the Give Way sign in the centre of the pic (above the facelift Cortina mk5 (new in 1980) ) as an arrow to the start of the slope down to the underpass,descending towards the left . Then the subway under the road - as the slope then ascended back up . Basically a "v" slope down towards the central underpass .On emerging on the other side , it was right turn only up a shallow slope . ;-)

btw , notice the probable early use of the now mandatory Hi -Viz clothing !

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Guest wayneybabes

i wonder if Prince Edwards School has any photos of the subway, see-ing as it was thier kids who painted the murals???

may have to do some phoning around!.

Seem to remember it being in the Sheffield Star as well

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.... treat the Give Way sign in the centre of the pic (above the facelift Cortina mk5 (new in 1980) ) as an arrow to the start of the slope down to the underpass,descending towards the left . Then the subway under the road - as the slope then ascended back up . Basically a "v" slope down towards the central underpass .On emerging on the other side , it was right turn only up a shallow slope . ;-)

btw , notice the probable early use of the now mandatory Hi -Viz clothing !

I know exactly where it was transit, but I bet a lot of people don't B)

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Guest jase29

Dave H is right about a school having the job to paint a mural on both sides of the subway, i should know this because I was one of the kids involved in painting these murals, the school was Stand House School at the junction of Raynold Road and Windy House Lane, i think the year was 1977 because if i can remember correctly it was one of the hottest summers ever. I was aged about 6 or 7 years old. I think there was about 10 of us selected to paint these walls due to our artistic skills, it took us about a week to finish the entire job, it was a bonus of getting out of lessons for a week aswell, oh and thanks alot Dave H for your comments about the motorbikes, being a very mad fan of motorbikes and having drawn plenty of them, they gave me the priveledge of drawing these on the walls, just stirred the old memory, they were red if i'm not mistaken :) It was a shame about the graffiti being sprayed all over all our hard work, but hey, thats the society of today,

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Sheffield used to have loads of underpasses and subways everywhere, especially in the City centre, and not forgetting our famous and sadly missed "Hole In The Road" with its network of connecting subways to the adjoining streets.

Almost all of them are now gone.

I think the main reasons for this are the high maintainance required, constant vandalism and the fact that they became so dangerous to use thanks to yobbish gangs that many became "no go" areas. It was safer to take your chance being run over by a car crossing the road than use a subway to get "safely" beneath it.

I use the crossings at Manor Top from theTesco side every Saturday on my way down to Mansfield Drive. Its a nightmare! Only yesterday a chap narrowly missed getting knocked down, we were at the third set of crossing lights when he had seen the traffic coming up Prince stop, so he started to cross,. failing to see the tram coming from behind him. I think I will start and walk up and use the crossings at Hurlfield Road. W/E.

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Dave H is right about a school having the job to paint a mural on both sides of the subway, i should know this because I was one of the kids involved in painting these murals, the school was Stand House School at the junction of Raynold Road and Windy House Lane, i think the year was 1977 because if i can remember correctly it was one of the hottest summers ever. I was aged about 6 or 7 years old. I think there was about 10 of us selected to paint these walls due to our artistic skills, it took us about a week to finish the entire job, it was a bonus of getting out of lessons for a week aswell, oh and thanks alot Dave H for your comments about the motorbikes, being a very mad fan of motorbikes and having drawn plenty of them, they gave me the priveledge of drawing these on the walls, just stirred the old memory, they were red if i'm not mistaken :) It was a shame about the graffiti being sprayed all over all our hard work, but hey, thats the society of today,

Welcome to Sheffield History Jase29 and many thanks for posting.

The artwork in the subway was, as I have said previously, a pleasure to see in its day and was a tribute to the talents of local junior school students.

I always thought it was Prince of Wales School (in viewing distance of the subway) rather than Stand house school, but I was never quite sure.

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Your in luck the Manor Star from 1978!

Nice find History Dude, exactly the sort of picture wayneybabes was looking for when he started this topic.

Can't help noticing that it says Prince of Wales school and not Stand House.

Were both schools involved in this project?

Did another school renovate the original artwork at a later date after the graffiti had started? I though the artwork was already there by 1978.

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I use the crossings at Manor Top from theTesco side every Saturday on my way down to Mansfield Drive. Its a nightmare! Only yesterday a chap narrowly missed getting knocked down, we were at the third set of crossing lights when he had seen the traffic coming up Prince stop, so he started to cross,. failing to see the tram coming from behind him. I think I will start and walk up and use the crossings at Hurlfield Road. W/E.

I use those crossings regularly as I live at Intake and my elderly mother lives on the Arbourthorne.

You have certainly got to have your wits about you when using them, - and it is best to only cross on the green man light even if the road seems clear.

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Guest jase29

I thought it was just the pupils from Stand House school that was involved but there could have been pupils from Prince Edward's school ( The one at the top of Prince of Wales road ) involved too, I was really excited about the newspaper clip that History Dude had put up, i was hoping to catch a glipse of my self as a nipper but sadly not quite in the shot. It's amazing how little things stir memories that you had totally forgot about until someone mentions something about it. If i am not mistaken it was a theme set on transport through out the decades, starting off with people walking,then a bicycle, then the horse and cart then a tram then a bus then a car then a motorbike (my doing lol ) then an aeroplane finishing off with a rocket, I wasn't far out with the date of 1977 so i will have been 7 years old in 1978, my final year at Standhouse before i moved up to Prince Edward's. Just like to say thanks DaveH for the welcome, cant believe i've only just discovered a fantastic site about anything and everything about Sheffield past and present, I'm an avid fan of sheffield history so this site is just an all in one package treat.

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