A City Walk

Hubby and I discovered this walk a few years ago when we dropped the kids off at the cinema and decided to walk from Attercliffe (a suburb of Sheffield ) into the city centre itself, along the canal towpath. Now this walk is littered along the way with hazards - litter being one of them ironically!! and its certainly not pretty for most of the way, but I think it is a really interesting walk. Tell me what you think.
The Sheffield and Tinsley Canal was opened in 1814 to carry boats to the city centre from the navigable bit of the river Don. Its only about 7 miles long and in its hey day, before the railway came along. It has several industrial looking, but pretty bridges along the towpath.

It also features a very famous film set. Can anybody guess which film this stretch of the canal featured in? If you need a further clue, try here.

The canal was totally frozen over from start to finish. Once in the city centre, the canal turns into a huge basin called Victoria Quays. I don't know what this building used to be, I'll have to do some digging.

The basin is home to lots of houseboats that are actually lived in, a couple of houseboat hotels and a couple of pleasure boats that are for private hire. The whole area fell into decay and disrepair in the 1970's, but it got a fabulous makeover in the early 1990's. They have turned some of the buildings into apartments, but they have left many of the original features in place. It really is a fantastic site, and I think they should really do more with it.

This is "The Straddle" - a warehouse that straddled the canal.

This is part of the "Grain Store" - if you peep in, you can see the massive hoppers that held the grain. Grain was brought to Sheffield as we had big bakeries and also several really large Breweries - sadly all gone. I say sadly, but when I was little. I hated this part of Sheffield because of the smell - it used to smell like "school dinner carrots"!!! It was the hops from the nearby brewery.

This is "Merchants Crescent" and was for the Coal Merchants - this pretty row is now used as offices.

I loved the old clock.

Once in Sheffield, you can cross the road and walk beck up to Attercliffe via the "5 Weirs walk" along the industrial river Don - obviously not navigable at this stage, because of the weirs. Modern bridges have been built so that you can walk alongside - and even over the river at this point. Can you see what is hanging over the bridge, under the railway arch?

A huge stainless steel spider. There were 3 of these.

A bit further up river is an area called "Salmon Pastures". Before the river was heavily polluted by the Steel Works, salmon were very common apparently. These days, there is no heavy industry alongside the river, and fish are now returning here. I don't think any salmon have been spotted yet though. I remember on a tour of the Steel Works museum being told that they pumped hundreds of gallons of Arsenic into the Don in the early days. There was an old saying that if you fell into the Don, you would be killed by pollution before you drowned!

At Salmon Pastures, the old Stone plaque from the school remains.

One of the weirs is Sanderson Weir. It was constructed in 1580 by the Earl of Shrewsbury who was the husband of Bess of Hardwick. He constructed it to power the production of Iron products (I think).

I looked back down the river as the sun was setting, a bit prematurely because of the snow cloud that was approaching.

You can't beat a walk immersed in industrial history on a cold but clear winters day.