Sheffield
Sheffield is a
city and
metropolitan borough in
South Yorkshire in the
north of England. It is so named because of its origins in a field on the
River Sheaf that runs through the town. The city has grown from its industrial roots to encompass a wide economic base.
The population of the City of Sheffield is estimated at 516,100 people (2004),
[The mid-2004 population estimate for the City of Sheffield was 516,100 according to the Office for National Statistics (accessed 21 December 2005). It should be noted that this figure includes the whole area included in the city. Some population figures, for example those given at List of English cities by population use just the urban core of the city and therefore are lower. The Neighbourhood profiles given by the Sheffield Health Authority estimates the figure at 542,716.] and it is one of the eight largest
English cities outside
London that form the
English Core Cities Group.
The city has become world famous for its production of
steel. Many innovations in the industry have been developed locally, including
crucible and
stainless steel . This fuelled an almost tenfold increase in the population since the start of
Industrial Revolution. It gained its
city charter in 1893 and became officially titled the City of Sheffield. International competition caused a decline in local industry during the 1970s and 1980s, affecting Sheffield's population. In recent years the city has attempted to reinvent itself as a sporting and technology city; there are signs that this is reversing its fortunes.
Sheffield is located at . It lies directly beside
Rotherham, from which it is separated by the
M1 motorway. Although
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough also borders Sheffield to the north, the town itself is a few miles further. The southern and western borders of the city are shared with
Derbyshire; in the first half of the 20th century Sheffield extended its borders south into Derbyshire, annexing a number of villages.
[J. G. Harston (2005) The borders of Sheffield from 1843 to 1994 (Accessed 28 December 2005)] Directly to the west of the city is the
Peak District National Park and the
Pennine hill range.
Sheffield is the most geographically diverse city in England.
["Case Studyâ€"Sheffield, UK". Greenstructures and Urban Planning. (Accessed 26 September 2005)] The city nestles in a natural amphitheatre created by several hills
[It is often stated that Sheffield is built on seven hills (for an example see Sheffield Hallam University's guide to the city for new students). However, a study by J.G.Harston found there to be eight.] and the confluence of five rivers:
Don,
Sheaf,
Rivelin,
Loxley and
Porter. As such, much of the city is built on hillsides with views into the city centre or out to the countryside. The city's lowest point is just 10 m above sea level, while some parts of the city are at over 500 metres (1,640
ft). However, 89% of the housing in the city is between 100 and 200 metres (330 & 660 ft) above sea level.
|
View of Sheffield City Centre from Norfolk Park |
With an estimated total of over two million trees
, Sheffield has more trees per person than any other city in Europe. It has over 170 woodlands (covering 28.27 km² / 10.9 mi²), 78 public parks (covering 18.30 km² / 7.1 mi²) and 10 public gardens. Added to the 134.66 km² (52
mi²) of national park and 10.87 km² (4.2 mi²) of water this means that 61% of the city is
greenspace.
Sheffield also has more types of
habitat than any city in the
United Kingdom: urban, parkland and woodland, agricultural and arable land, moors, meadows and freshwater-based habitats. Large parts of the city are designated as
sites of special scientific interest including several urban areas.
The present city boundaries were set in 1974, when the former
county borough of Sheffield merged with
Stocksbridge Urban District and two parishes from the
Wortley Rural District. This area includes a significant part of the countryside surrounding the main urban region. Roughly a third of Sheffield lies in the
Peak District National Park (no other English city has a
national park within its boundary), and Sheffield is officially Europe's greenest city, having won the 2005
Entente Florale competition. This was helped by the fact that Sheffield contains over 150
woodland spaces and 50 public
parks.
[Facts and Figures (Accessed 27 December 2005)].
People
See also: List of famous residents of Sheffield and
People of Sheffield
People from Sheffield are called Sheffielders. They are also colloquially known to people in the surrounding towns of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Chesterfield as "Dee-dars" (which derives from their pronunciation of the "th" in the dialectal words "thee" and "thou"),[Alexander, Don (2001). ]Orreight Mi Ol': observations on dialect, humour and local lore of Sheffield & District
. Sheffield: ALD Design and Print. ISBN 1901587185 although the term is in decline and is not nearly as prevalent as "Scouse" is for "Liverpudlian" or "Geordie" is for "Novocastrian". Many Yorkshire dialect words and aspects of pronunciation derive from old Norse[Yorkshire Dialect Words of Old Norse Origin. ]The Vikings
(accessed 5 January 2005) due to the Viking influence in this region.| Year | Population[ Historical population (Accessed 4 December 2005)] | |1801| 60,095 |
|1851| 161,475 |
|1901| 451,195 |
|1921| 543,336 |
|1941| 569,884 |
|1951| 577,050 |
|1961| 574,915 |
|1971| 572,794 |
|1981| 530,844 |
|1991| 528,708 |
|2001| 513,234 |
At the time of the 2001 UK census, the ethnic make-up of Sheffield's population was 91.2% White, 4.6% Asian, 1.6 mixed and 1.8% Black. Sheffield also has large Polish, Somali, Slovak, Yemeni and Kosovar populations. In terms of religion, 68.6% of the population are Christian and 4.6% Muslim. Other religions represent less than 1% each. The number of people without a religion is above the national average at 17.9%, with 7.8% not stating their religion.[Sheffield profile (Accessed 21 December 2005)]The largest quinary group is 20- to 24-year-olds (9.2%), mainly because of the large university population (45,000+).[Mid-2004 population estimates. ]National Statistics.'' (Accessed
21 December 2005)
Districts
Main article: Districts of Sheffield
Sheffield is made up of numerous districts that vary widely in size and history. Many of these districts developed from villages or
hamlets that have become absorbed into Sheffield as the city has grown. For this reason, whilst the centre of most districts is easy to define, the boundaries of many of the districts are ambiguous. Some of the more famous districts sometimes are used to describe the surrounding area as well. One such district is
Hillsborough, which has the
stadium named after it despite being located in Owlerton.
The districts are largely ignored by the administrative and political divisions of the city; instead it is divided into 28 electoral
wards,
[Sheffield's Ward Boundaries. Sheffield City Council website (Accessed 29 December 2005)] with each ward generally covering 4–6 districts. The electoral wards are grouped into six
parliamentary constituencies, although because of a different review cycle, the ward and constituency boundaries are currently not all conterminous. Sheffield is largely
unparished, but
Bradfield and
Ecclesfield have parish councils, and
Stocksbridge has a town council.
|
Panorama from Meersbrook Park |
Main article: History of Sheffield
The area that is now the City of Sheffield has been occupied since at least the last
ice age,
[Experts put date to UK rock art. BBC News. (Accessed 27 December 2005).] but the settlements that grew to form Sheffield date from the second half of the 1st millennium, and are of
Anglo-Saxon and
Danish origin.
[Vickers, J. Edward MBE (1999). Old Sheffield Town. An Historical Miscellany (2nd ed.). Sheffield: The Hallamshire Press Limited. ISBN 1-874718-44-X.] In Anglo-Saxon times the Sheffield area straddled the border between the kingdoms of
Mercia and
Northumbria. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that
King Eanred of
Northumbria submitted to
King Egbert of
Wessex at the hamlet of
Dore (now a suburb of Sheffield) in 829.
[In an entry dated 827 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states "Egbert led an army against the Northumbrians as far as Dore, where they met him, and offered terms of obedience and subjection, on the acceptance of which they returned home" (transcription). Most sources (for example Vickers, 1999 above) state that the date given in the chronicle is incorrect, and that 829 is the more likely date for this event.] This event made Egbert the first Saxon to claim to be king of all of England. After the
Norman conquest,
Sheffield Castle was built to control the local settlements, and a small town developed that is the nucleus of the modern city.
By 1296 a market had been established at what is now known as
Castle Square,
[Sheffield Market History. Sheffield Markets. (Accessed 27 December 2005)] and Shefffield subsequently grew into a small market town. In the 14th century Sheffield was already noted for the production of knives, as mentioned in
Geoffrey Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales[Geoffrey Chaucer in The Reeve's Tale from his book The Canterbury Tales wrote: ] ("Ther was no man, for peril, dorste hym touche. A Sheffeld thwitel baar he in his hose. Round was his face, and camus was his nose"), and by 1600 it had become the main centre of cutlery production in England, overseen by
The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire. From 1570 to 1584
Mary, Queen of Scots was held as a prisoner in Sheffield Castle and
Sheffield Manor.
In the 1740s a form of the
crucible steel process was discovered that allowed the manufacture of a better quality of
steel than had previously been available, and at about the same time a technique for fusing a thin sheet of
silver onto a
copper ingot to produce silver plating was invented and became widely known as
Sheffield plate. These innovations spurred the growth of Sheffield as an industrial town. However, the loss of some important export markets led to a recession in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The resulting poor conditions culminated in a
cholera epidemic that killed 402 people in 1832.
The
industrial revolution saw a resurgence of Sheffield through the 19th century. As a result of its growing population, the town was incorporated as a
Borough in 1842 and granted a
city charter in 1893.
[History of the Lord Mayor. Sheffield City Council website. (Accessed 27 December 2005)] The influx of people also led to demand for better water supplies, and a number of new reservoirs were constructed on the outskirts of the town. The collapse of the dam wall of one of these reservoirs in 1864 resulted in
the Great Sheffield flood, a flood that killed 270 people and devastated large parts of the town. The growing population also led to the construction of a large number of back-to-back slums, which, along with severe pollution from the factories, inspired
George Orwell, writing in 1937, to declare, "Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World".
[George Orwell (1937). The Road to Wigan Pier, chapter 7.]A recession in the 1930s was only halted by the increasing tension as
World War II loomed. The steel factories of Sheffield were set to work making weapons and ammunition for the war. As a result, once war was declared, the city became a target for bombing raids, the heaviest of which occurred over the nights of
12 December and
15 December 1940 (now known as the
Sheffield Blitz). More than 660 lives were lost and numerous buildings were destroyed.
[The Story of the Sheffield Blitz. Sheffield Genealogy Family & Social History (Accessed 28 December 2005)]Following the war, in the 1950s and 1960s, many of the slums were demolished and replaced with housing schemes such as the
Park Hill flats. Large parts of the city centre were also cleared to make way for a new system of roads.
Increased automation and competition from abroad resulted in the closure of many of the steel mills. The 1980s saw the worst of this run-down of Sheffield's industries (along with those of many other areas in the UK), culminating with the 1984/5
miners' strike. The building of the
Meadowhall shopping centre on the site of a former steelworks in 1990 was a mixed blessing, creating much needed jobs but speeding the decline of the city centre. Attempts to regenerate the city were kick-started when the city hosted the 1991
World Student Games, which necessitated the construction of new sporting facilities such as the
Sheffield Arena,
Don Valley Stadium and the
Ponds Forge complex.
The city is now changing rapidly as new projects aim to regenerate run-down parts of the city. One such project, the
Heart of the City Project, has seen a number of public works in the city centre: the
Peace Gardens were renovated in 1998, the
Millennium Galleries opened in April 2001, the
Winter Gardens were opened on
22 May 2003, and most recently a public space to link these two areas, the Millennium Square, was opened in May 2006. A number of other projects grouped under the title
Sheffield One aim to regenerate the whole of the city centre, with ambitious plans for a split-level high street shopping area due to be finalised at the end of 2006.
Labour Profile[Labour profile (Accessed 4 December 2005)] | |Total employee jobs| 239,941 |
|Full-time| 156,407 | 65.2% |
|Part-time| 83,533 | 34.8% |
|Manufacturing| 33,568 | 14.0% |
|Construction| 9,239 | 3.9% |
|Services| 196,646 | 82.0% |
| Distribution, hotels & restaurants | 57,924 | 24.1% |
| Transport & communications | 11,575 | 4.8% |
| Finance, IT, other business activities | 43,694 | 18.2% |
| Public admin, education & health | 70,442 | 29.4% |
| Other services | 13,011 | 5.4% |
| Tourism-related | 18,146 | 7.6% |
After many years of decline, there are now signs that the Sheffield economy is seeing a revival. The 2004
Barclays Bank Financial Planning study
["Wealth hotspots 'outside London'". BBC News. (Accessed 7 July 2004)] revealed that, in 2003, the Sheffield district of
Hallam was the highest ranking area outside London for overall wealth, the proportion of people earning over £60,000 a year standing at almost 12%. A survey by Knight Frank
[Sheffield 'hotbed' for investment BBC News (Accessed 17 October 2005)] revealed that Sheffield was the fastest-growing city outside of
London for office and residential space and rents during the second half of 2004. Some £250 million has also been invested in the city during 2005. The Sheffield economy is worth £7.4 billion (2003 GVA).
[Headline GVA by NUTS3 area at current basic prices 1995 to 2003 Economy worth (Accessed 22 December 2005)]Sheffield has an international reputation for metallurgy and
steel-making.
[There are numerous sources showing the international reputation of Sheffield for metallurgy, and in particular steel and cutlery manufacture. Some examples are: the Oxford English Dictionary, which begins its entry for Sheffield, "The name of a manufacturing city of Yorkshire, famous for cutlery"; and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which in its entry for Sheffield states that by 1830 Sheffield had earned "recognition as the world centre of high-grade steel manufacture". David Hey in the preface to his 1997 book Mesters to Masters: A History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire. (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198289979) states "It (Sheffield) was known for its cutlery wares long before the incorporation of the Cutlers' Company in 1624, and long before it acquired an international reputation as the steel capital of the world."] Many innovations in these fields have been made in Sheffield.
Benjamin Huntsman discovered the
crucible technique in the 1740s at his workshop in
Handsworth. This process was made obsolete in 1856 by
Henry Bessemer's invention of the
Bessemer converter.
Thomas Boulsover invented
Sheffield Plate (silver-plated copper) in the early 18th century.
Stainless steel was invented by
Harry Brearley in 1912, and the work of
F. B. Pickering and T. Gladman throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s was fundamental to the development of modern high-strength low-alloy steels.
While iron and steel have long been the main industries of Sheffield,
coal mining has also been a major industry, particularly in the outlying areas, and the
Palace of Westminster in
London was built using
limestone from
quarries in the nearby village of
Anston. Other areas of employment include
call centres, the
City Council, universities and
hospitals. Sheffield currently produces more steel per year than at any other time in its history.
[Government News Network (Accessed 23 October 2005)] However, the industry is now less noticeable as it has become highly automated and employs far fewer staff than in the past.
Sheffield is also a major retail centre, although it compares unfavourably with other major cities, it is home to many
High Street and
department stores as well as designer boutiques. The main city centre shopping areas are on
The Moor precinct,
Fargate,
Orchard Square and the
Devonshire Quarter.
Department stores in Sheffield City centre include
John Lewis,
Marks and Spencer,
Atkinsons, Castle House
Co-op and
Debenhams. Sheffield's main
market is the
Castle Market, built above the remains of the castle. Shopping areas outside the city centre include the
Meadowhall shopping centre and retail park,
Ecclesall Road,
London Road,
Hillsborough and the
Crystal Peaks shopping centre. There are also several retail parks around Crystal Peaks.
In a 2005 survey on spending potential, Meadowhall came 16th (second in out-of-town shopping centres behind
Bluewater) with £977 million while Sheffield city centre came 18th with £953 million.
[CACI survey retail rankings (Accessed 5 October 2005)] In a 2004 survey on the top retail destinations, Meadowhall was 20th while Sheffield was 35th.
[Expirian Website 2 March 2004 press release on retail rankings (Accessed 5 October 2005)] In both cases Sheffield is unique in being the only major city to have a shopping centre above the city centre in the lists. It is hoped that this problem can be rectified by the creation of the £500 million New Retail Quarter project.
[New Retail Quater (Accessed 28 December 2005)] |
Sheffield Town Hall and the Peace Gardens |
Sheffield is governed by the elected
Sheffield City Council. For most of the council's history it has been controlled by the
Labour Party. There was, however, a brief period of
Liberal Democrat control at the turn of the century. There are 84 councillors; the current council leader is
Jan Wilson. The city also has a
Lord Mayor. In the past the Office of Mayor had considerable authority, and carried with it executive powers over the finances and affairs of the city council. Today it is simply a ceremonial role. The current Lord Mayor is
Jackie Drayton.
The majority of council-owned facilities are now operated by independent charitable trusts.
Sheffield International Venues runs many of the cities sporting and leisure facilities, including
Sheffield Arena and
Don Valley Stadium.
Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust and the
Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust take care of galleries and museums owned by the council. These include the
Millennium Galleries,
Lyceum Theatre and the
Crucible Theatre.
In 2004/5 the Gross Revenue Expenditure of £1,229 million was distributed as follows:
[Sheffield City Council Statement of Accounts 2004/2005 (Accessed 26 December 2005)]*Education 33%
*Housing 25%
*Social Services 17%
*Other Services 11%
*Highways, Transportation and Planning 6%
*Leisure and Tourism 5%
*Refuse Collection and Disposal 2%
*Environmental Health 1%
The city currently returns six MPs to the
House of Commons, but this will be reduced to five at the next election as one constituency is shared with Barnsley.
International links
Sheffield is formally twinned with:
*
Anshan,
China*
Bochum,
Germany*
Donetsk,
Ukraine*
Esteli,
NicaraguaThere are more informal links with:
*
Kawasaki,
Japan*
Kitwe,
Zambia*
Pittsburgh,
United States.
[Sheffield City Council: International Links (Accessed 27 December 2005)] Sheffield has also had close links with
Poland, since Polish ex-servicemen who had fought alongside British forces during the
Second World War settled in the city. As a result a Polish
consulate was opened in the City in 1997, the first new Polish consulate to open in the UK for over 60 years.
[Polish Consulate in Sheffield (Accessed 27 December 2005)]Sheffield has a long sporting heritage. In 1857 a collective of
cricketers formed the world's first-ever official
football club,
Sheffield F.C., and by 1860 there were 15 football clubs in Sheffield. There are now two local clubs in the
Football League:
Sheffield United and
Sheffield Wednesday, and two major non-league sides:
Sheffield F.C. and
Hallam F.C. (the two oldest club sides in the world). Hallam F.C. still play at the world's oldest football ground near the suburb of Crosspool.
|
Don Valley Stadium during the World Student Games in 1991 |
Sheffield also has close ties with
snooker, due to the fact that the city's
Crucible Theatre is the venue for the
World Snooker Championships. The English
squash open is also held there every year. The city also boasts the
Sheffield Eagles rugby league,
Sheffield Sharks basketball and
Sheffield Steelers ice hockey teams. Sheffield is home to 2004 World
Superbike champion
James Toseland and of climber
Joe Simpson. Former athlete and world record holder,
Sebastian Coe grew up in the city and began his career as a member of the
Hallamshire Harriers.
Many of Sheffield's extensive sporting facilities were built for the
World Student Games, which the city hosted in 1991. They include the
Don Valley International Athletics Stadium,
Sheffield Arena, and
Ponds Forge international diving and swimming complex, where
Olympic medallist
Leon Taylor trains. There are also facilities for golf, climbing and bowling, as well as a newly inaugurated (2003) national ice-skating arena (
IceSheffield). The
Sheffield Ski Village is the largest artificial
ski resort in Europe, and is due to undergo a major expansion soon.
The city also has two indoor
climbing centres. Sheffield was the UK's first National City of Sport and is now home to the
English Institute of Sport (EIS). Sheffield has taken a bid to either host the
2014 Commonwealth Games or the
2018 Commonwealth Games.
7.2% of Sheffield's working population are employed in the creative industries, well above the national average of 4%.
is an annual event over the first two weekends in May where local
visual artists and fine
craft workers invite the public to their studios and other venues.
Music
Sheffield has been the home of several well-known bands and musicians, with an unusually large number of
synth pop and other
electronic outfits hailing from there. These include the
Human League,
Heaven 17, the
Thompson Twins,
Wavestar and the more
industrially inclined
Cabaret Voltaire. This electronic tradition has continued:
techno label
Warp Records was a central pillar of the
Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass scene of the early 1990s, and has gone on to become one of Britain's oldest and best-loved dance music labels.
Moloko and
Autechre, one of the leading lights of so-called
intelligent dance music, are also based in Sheffield. The city is also home to a number of nightclubs including
Gatecrasher One, one of the most popular
nightclubs in the north of England and Corporation, a more rock and metal nightclub popular with many students.
Sheffield has also seen the birth of
Pulp,
Def Leppard,
Joe Cocker,
The Longpigs and the
free improvisers Derek Bailey and
Tony Oxley. 1998
Mercury Music Prize award winners
Gomez are also connected to Sheffield, as some of the founding members went to
Sheffield Hallam University together.
The
Arctic Monkeys, who have recently exploded onto the UK music scene with the fastest selling debut album of all time,
[rockfeedback.com Arctic Monkeys review (Accessed 27 December 2005)],
Milburn,
the Long Blondes, the
math rock band
65daysofstatic, and classic rockers
Firegarden are four of the most recent additions to the list.
|
Former National Centre for Popular Music |
Sheffield also has a large Hip/Hop and R'n'B music scene and is home to artists such as
NoXcuse and
Hoodz Underground and is at the centre of the
Yorkshire Hip Hop scene.
The city's ties with music were acknowledged in 1999, when the
National Centre for Popular Music, a
museum dedicated to the subject of
popular music, was opened. It was not as successful as was hoped, however, and later evolved to become a live music venue; then in February 2005, the unusual steel-covered building became the
students' union for
Sheffield Hallam University. Live music venues in the city include the
Leadmill,
Corporation, the
Boardwalk, the
City Hall, the
University of Sheffield and the Studio Theatre at the
Crucible Theatre. Smaller venues supporting the local scene include
The Grapes,
D 'n' R Live (formerly Under The Boardwalk) and
The Cricketers. Sheffield also has a number of local orchestras including the Hallam Sinfonia, Sheffield Symphony Orchestra, the Sheffield Chamber Orchestra, and the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra.
Attractions
See also: Visitor Attractions in SheffieldSheffield has two major theatres, the
Lyceum Theatre and the
Crucible Theatre, which together with the smaller
Studio Theatre make up the largest theatre complex outside
London.
[Sheffield Theatres (Accessed 26 December 2005)] There are four major
art galleries, including the modern
Millennium Galleries and the
Site Gallery, which specialises in multimedia. The
Sheffield Walk of Fame in the
City Centre honours famous
Sheffielders like the
Hollywood version.
The city also has a number of other attractions such as the
Sheffield Winter Gardens and the
Peace Gardens. The
Botanical Gardens are currently undergoing a £6.7-million-pound restoration. There is also a city farm at Heeley City Farm and a second animal collection in
Graves Park that is open to the public. The city also has several
museums, including the
Sheffield City Museum, the
Kelham Island Museum, the
Sheffield Fire and Police Museum,
Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and
Shepherd Wheel.
Victoria Quays is also a popular canal-side leisure and office quarter.
|
The Glass Houses, Sheffield Botanical Gardens |
There are about
1,000 listed buildings in Sheffield (including the whole of the Sheffield postal district). Of these, only five are Grade I listed. 42 are Grade II*, the rest being Grade II listed. Compared with other English cities Sheffield has few Grade I buildings.
Liverpool, for example, has
26 Grade I listed buildings. This situation led the noted architecture historian
Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in 1959, to comment that the city was "architecturally a miserable disappointment" with no pre-19th century buildings of any distinction.
[Harman, R. & Minnis, J. (2004) Pevsner City Guides: Sheffield p3. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300105851]The city has many parks such as
Millhouses Park,
Endcliffe Park and
Graves Park.
Large parts of the city are designated as
sites of special scientific interest (areas of land which the British Government considers to be of special interest by virtue of its fauna, flora, geological or physiographical features) including several urban areas.
Media and film
|
The Arts Tower, part of the University of Sheffield |
The films
The Full Monty,
Threads,
When Saturday Comes and
Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? were based in the city.
F.I.S.T. also included several scenes filmed in Sheffield. Sheffield's daily
newspaper is the
Sheffield Star, complemented by the weekly
Sheffield Telegraph. The
BBC's
Radio Sheffield and the independent
Hallam FM and sister station
Magic AM broadcast to the city. The
Sheffield International Documentary Festival, the UK's leading documentary festival, has been run annually since 1994 at the
Showroom Cinema. A song by
The Clash titled "
This Is England" features the lyric: "This is England / This knife of Sheffield steel / This is England / This is how we feel." Sheffield will host the
Awards of the International Indian Film Academy in 2007.
Education
Sheffield has two
universities, the
University of Sheffield and
Sheffield Hallam University. The two combined bring 45,000 students to the city every year, including many from the
Far East. As a result of its large student population, Sheffield has many bars, cafes, clubs and shops as well as student housing to accommodate them.
Sheffield has only two
colleges:
Longley Park Sixth Form College, opened in 2004, and
Sheffield College, created from the merger of six colleges around the city, since reduced to just three: Castle College in the city centre, Hillsborough College and
Norton College. There are also 141
primary schools and 23
secondary schools, of which seven have
sixth forms, most notably
High Storrs School,
Silverdale School,
Tapton School and
King Edward VII School in the south of Sheffield. There are also seven private schools.
There are two main interchanges for all public transport modes (national and local rail, tram, local buses, coaches) at
Meadowhall and in the
city centre.
National and international travel
National and regional roads
Sheffield is linked into the national motorway network via the
M1 and
M18 motorways. The M1 skirts the north-east of the city, linking Sheffield with
London to the south and
Leeds to the north; the M18 branches from the M1 close to Sheffield, linking the city with
Doncaster,
Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport and the
Humber ports. The
Sheffield Parkway connects the city centre with the motorways. The
A57 and
A61 roads are the major trunk roads through Sheffield, linking Sheffield with Manchester, Worksop, Barnsley, and Chesterfield.
National rail
The main line south from Sheffield links the city to the East Midlands and London: providing direct services to Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Bedford (the fastest train Sheffield to London is 2 hours). Also running through Sheffied is the main NE/SW cross-country line which links the East of Scotland and Northeast of England directly with West and South Yorkshire, the West Midlands, and the Southwest: providing direct services to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Darlington, York, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Taunton, and Exeter. Sheffield also lies on the line linking Liverpool and Manchester with Hull and East Anglia: providing direct services to Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Lincoln, Ely and Norwich. The main station for all these services is
Sheffield Station on the south-eastern edge of the city centre. The station at
Meadowhall serves all trains travelling northeast except the fastest. Passenger rail services through Sheffield are provided by
Midland Mainline,
Virgin Trains,
Central Trains,
TransPennine Express, and
Northern Rail.
[UK rail network map (PDF) showing which train companies operate on each route. Provided by National Rail Enquiries (Accessed 28 December 2005)]Coaches
Sheffield is an important hub in the national network of long-distance buses (coaches), and there are direct services from distant cities such as Plymouth and Edinburgh.
Air
The closest international airport to Sheffield is
Doncaster Sheffield, which is located 18 miles from the city centre. The Airport opened on
April 28 2005 and is served mainly by
budget airlines and currently handles around one million passengers a year.
Sheffield City Airport opened in 1997 but, due in part to its short runway and lack of radar, has been unable to capitalise on the boom in low cost air travel.
Manchester International Airport,
Leeds Bradford International Airport and
Nottingham East Midlands Airport all lie within a one hour's drive of the city.
Manchester International Airport is connected to Sheffield by a direct train every hour.
Local travel
Local roads
The
A57 and
A61 roads are the major trunk roads through Sheffield. These run east-west and north-south, respectively, crossing in the city centre. Other major roads generally radiate spoke-like from the city centre. An inner
ring road, mostly constructed in the 1970s and currently (2006) being extended to form a complete ring, allows traffic to avoid the city centre, and an outer "ring road" runs to the east, near the edge of the city, but does not serve the western side of Sheffield.
Local rail
The famously hilly topography of Sheffield might seem to rule out rail travel for local travelling. To the East of the city centre, the flatter landscape is traversed by several busy railway lines to the north, east, and south east, bringing workers from all over
South Yorkshire as well as from the closer parts of
West Yorkshire,
Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and
Derbyshire. These local routes include the
Penistone Line, the
Dearne Valley Line, the
Hope Valley Line, and the
Hallam Line. As well as the main stations;
Sheffield Midland and
Meadowhall, there are four suburban stations at
Chapeltown,
Darnall,
Woodhouse and near
Dore.
Light rail
The light rail system
Sheffield Supertram, opened in 1994, serves the city. Its network consists of three lines that run from the city centre out to
Hillsborough,
Halfway, and
Meadowhall.
[Stagecoach Supertram:About Us (Accessed 28 December 2005)]Local buses
A sizeable
bus infrastructure operates from a main hub at
Pond Street bus station. Other bus stations lie at
Meadowhall and
Hillsborough. A flurry of new operators were created after deregulation in the 1986, including
Caldaire-owned
Sheffield & District, and independents like
Yorkshire Terrier,
Sheaf Line,
Andrew's,
Sheffield Omnibus and
Northern Bus. The majority of these gradually amalgamated, Andrew's, Terrier, Sheaf Line and Sheffield Ominibus ending up with the
Traction Group (or
Yorkshire Traction), Sheffield & District and
Sheffield United Travel ending up with Mainline and Northern Bus with successor First Mainline, leaving First South Yorkshire (formerly First
Mainline), owned by
FirstGroup plc, as by far the largest bus operator.
Stagecoach Sheffield (formerly Yorkshire Traction's Sheffield operation, Yorkshire Terrier),
Stagecoach East Midlands,
TM Travel and
Arriva Yorkshire also run bus routes in the city. In recent years a series of price rises and service cuts, by Mainline and First, has seen bus ridership drop
[Call for action to halt fall in bus passengers. Sheffield Star, 16 August 2005] and has prompted angry commuters to start a campaign called
We Want Our Buses Back[Next stop in bus protest campaign. Sheffield Star, 31 January 2006].
Cycling
Although hilly, Sheffield is compact and has few major trunk roads running through it. It is on the
Trans-Pennine Trail, a
National Cycle Network route running from
Southport in the north-west to
Hornsea in the
East Riding, and has a developing Strategic Cycle Network within the city. The
Peak District National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty popular with both on- and off-road cyclists, is so close to Sheffield that part of the park lies within the city boundary, and there are green routes into the park almost from the city centre.
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Largest European metropolitan areas*
Sheffield City Centre*
Listed buildings in Sheffield*
Photographs of Sheffield*
Timeline of Sheffield history
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Sheffield City Council Website*
BBC South Yorkshire*
Sheffield Today Site (News from the "Sheffield Star" Newspaper)*
Help for those researching their Sheffield ancestry*
Sheffield Forum - 20,000+ members, mostly from Sheffield
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Sheffield Flickr - Photos of Sheffield by the Sheffield Members of Flickr
Guides
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SHEFFIELD city guide*
MySheffield.net*
Sheffield Scene*
Made In Sheffield
