We arrived to find the place EMPTY!!! Hardly anyone around. It will be all change in a couple of weeks when this place welcomes back its inhabitants. We have two universities in Sheffield, and the student population has certainly helped the city to survive.
Come with me, I'll show you a bit more.
This is Sheffield's newest building - it is a block of very swish and expensive apartments - many months behind schedule as they were started just as the credit crunch hit. It will be Sheffield's tallest building, and has caused lots of controversy, but its here now (although not finished yet). The views from the top of here will be amazing as you can see right out to the Peak District - all though with my head for heights(!!) I might need a Valium to help me get to the top!.
The apartments are right in the heart of the city, with the Millennium Galleries for its next door neighbour.
And next door to that, is the city library, with the Graves Art Gallery on the top floor. For some reason, the Graves Gallery is not very well publicised, and I didn't realise it was here for years. Now its one of my favourite places for a wander round (and its free!). I particularly love the Egyptian on the top of the lovely building, and the lovely 1930's architecture and features of the building itself.
The library and gallery has the Lyceum theatre for a next door neighbour, which in turn has the newly refurbished Crucible Theatre for a neighbour.
All this sits around the newly refurbished Tudor Square.
As you can see, it all sits very nicely together (along with the Winter Gardens - bottom right) to make a very pretty, interesting and cultural heart to our city. There are a few bars - in fact the one at Crucible Corner often has actors and actress's who are rehearsing for plays etc eating and drinking there. There are also a couple of hotels here too, along with a few restaurants. But it all needs more visitors. Sheffield is not a tourist city like Bath, York, Oxford etc It has been a heavily industrialised city in the past, but it has great charm and is very friendly and its trying harder than most city's to be appealing.
I also spotted this lovely frieze on the Catholic church (more a cathedral really) which I had not seen before.
And we discovered a lovely exhibition of sculptures by George Fullard in a pretty little square. This one is called Mother and Child.
All in all a lovely evening stroll with a bit of a difference. We must do this again soon.
12 comments:
Gosh Diane, your right there was no one there! still good to have the place to yourselves I guess!
love
Lyn
xxx
My word it was a little bit on the quiet side. I live in a real studenty area and I'm kind of dreading the next few weeks when everyone starts moving back in and being noisy people!
I enjoyed that stroll around - thanks Diane.
I was especially taken with the Mother & Child sculpture - it's something I could have in my garden (when I get a garden that is).
Jill x
Isn't it funny how we never get round to seeing the sights in our own home town ..... I've never been to Sheffield but my husband went to teacher training college there in the seventies. I'm sure it's all very different now.The Mother and Child sculpture is lovely.
Love Kathy xxx
You are SUCH an ambassador for Sheffield............ you really, really are.... it all looks wonderful.
Like Jill, I think the statue of the mother and child is terrific. You've made a great post, walking us through the city. Nice tour!
I've enjoyed your tour - the sculpture is lovely:) Like you I'm a bit wary of very tall buildings but they do look wonderful against the skyline. Love the Graves Art Gallery - they used to have and perhaps still do have my favourite painting in there by Gwen John. I posted a little parcel for you yesterday:)
Hi Diane, Thank you for popping by. Thats a deal, you house sit for me and I'll buy you a special chair so that you can sit on the balcony and watch me sail in on my boat! and if you do a good job of house sitting i may let you take the boat out for a spin!! x
So when are the tourist board going to get you working for them freelance?!
Lisa x
Thanks for showing us around. A nice evening stroll. Don't you just love it when there is no-one around.
ooh thanks, I really enjoyed that little trip.
We visited Sheffield yesterday to go to the Graves Gallery and see the Fay Godwin exhibition - couldn't believe it was closed! In Manchester EVERYTHING is open on a Sunday - it just hadn't occurred to me it would be shut! Never mind - we had a little wander round and loved the square with the oversized gardens-on-a-plate (Tudor Square?). Then we pottered over to have a look at your neck of the woods - very pretty - it is so rural - aren't you lucky? (We had to track down the site of the old Sheffield City Airport first as my husband is an aviation nut). A great day out despite the closed gallery :-)
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