Savile Town Marina, Dewsbury, South Yorkshire

The morning dawned fine but with an overlay of mist which provided a rather ethereal view over the countryside as we travelled south to Sheffield on the M1. The varying shades of green and gold peered out of that mist in a most picturesque manner, a mist that did not detract from the safety of the route.

We found our way through to the Park & Ride at Nunnery Square, from where we caught one of the trams into the heart of the city. Despite the early hour, still before some of the shops were to open, the city was full of thousands of runners, sweaty and tired, having just run the Sheffield 10K, race organisers and police by the dozens. We also found out that the large police presence was partly due to further crowds pouring into the city for the first football Derby since 2012, a match between Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, a long anticipated match to be held at the ill-famed Hillsborough Stadium.

We managed to find our way through the crowds to the Information Centre to find it shut on Sundays, then to the museum to find that not open until 11 am, then the Art Gallery and library to find that not open on Sundays either. This was not to be our day.

In fact the frustrations had started when we arrived at the Park &Ride, where we had elected to use the ticket machine that took both cash and card, but could not get the “touch” screen to respond to our caress. Fortunately the second machine did work, accepting cash only, but I had left the old £1 coins in my purse back at camp, these the ones we need to use up before they become obsolete within the next few weeks. However we did have some shiny new ones and managed to have the machine spit out a “family” ticket, the best Sunday deal for us. Then another user arrived to say that the parking was free today and we just needed to pay on the tram for that section of the facility; we had read on the poster that the parking was free only for the runners taking part in the big event. The notice was so ambiguous we all arrived at different interpretations. Needless to say, none of this was set to please grumpy seniors or even “easy going” husbands.

In the city, we retreated to McDonalds after having sought directions from several policemen, most from out of town and unable to offer sensible advice. Given that the street frontage of the eatery was screened with scaffolding, it was no wonder its whereabouts was a mystery. After coffee and burgers for morning tea, we reviewed our itinerary and set off on foot up into the retail area, duly impressed and managing to avoid temptation, although not without sifting through the sales racks hoping for something to jump out to say “Buy me!”

We lunched in the lovely Peace Garden square, squirting and shooting water from a variety of weird and wonderful orafices, delighting the many children present today. Nearby is the equally lovely Winter Garden, an arched steel and wood glasshouse almost 200 feet long and over 60 feet high. It was developed as part of Sheffield’s £120 million Heart of the City project, and is glazed with over 2,100 square metres of glass, using 900 cubic metres of concrete and 80 tonnes of steel. It was opened to the public in 2002, then the largest glasshouse in any European city centre.

It is here that one finds the entrance, or at least one of them, to the museum of a rather abbreviated kind; three galleries housing the Ruskin Gallery, the Metalworks Gallery celebrating the city’s industry and an exhibition of entries to the annual Ruskin Prize. 

The Ruskin Gallery is based on the collection founded by John Ruskin in 1875 to improve the working people of Sheffield. Here is an eclectic mix of art, geology, books and other cultural treasures, and in quantities that the visitor does not get bogged down in the muddle as can happen so easily in such places.

The Metalworks Gallery is mainly about the cutlery industry for which Sheffield is famous. Even by the 1200s the city was well known for producing good quality affordable cutlery, one of several towns outside of London that did this, including York and Salisbury. From the 1300s improvements to water wheel technology gave Sheffield a unique advantage. More efficient blade grinding workshops could be built along its five fast flowing rivers, enabling the town to develop ahead of its rivals. 

The town had grown over seven hills, divided by wooded valleys with those rivers. It was these surroundings that helped the city to become the steel capital of Britain. For the hills yielded iron ore, the woods provided charcoal, and the rivers provided the power. Gritstone from the surrounding moors was used to make grinding wheels, and later it was the discovery of local coal and the invention by Benjamin Huntsmen of a process for making steel that revolutionised industry in Sheffield. 

By the 1600s Sheffield was the biggest producer of cutlery outside London, employing around a third of the city’s male population. Through the next century, Sheffield was a large market town of 5,500 inhabitants with an established reputation in the industry. By the late 1800s the city was the world leader in the cutlery and light metal trades, as well as its heavy steel industry, however serious competition from technologically advanced firms in America and Germany was growing.

The 20^th century saw a huge change for Sheffield’s metal industries. Two World Wars limited production to essential items, halted overseas trade and reduced the market for luxury goods. The loss of the workforce interrupted progress and many firms did not recover. By the late 1950s, there were still around 700 cutlery companies employing 15,000 people. Firms who adapted to large scale mechanised production of stainless steel and who made pewter goods saw a rise in their fortunes.

In the 1960s, the cutlery industry was put under massive pressure from the cheap imports from Asia, a lack of investment and the outsourcing of manufacturing processes abroad to reduce costs. The 1980s recession saw many businesses close or be taken over by large overseas organisations. By the 1990s there were fewer than 1,000 people in around ten companies.

This century has seen Sheffield turn away from mass production and I sensed there has been a return almost to cottage industry, boutique production, completing a circle of an industry started as a craft.

After exiting the museum, we crossed the square which had earlier been packed out with athletes and their supporters, and found our way to the Cathedral Church of St Marie’s, Sheffield’s Catholic mother church. It is an attractive place of worship but like so many Catholic churches one visits, there were several parishioners there to pray or practice their faith in other ways, and one feels rather voyeuristic being there. We did not stay long.

Not too far away is the Anglican Cathedral of St Peter & St Paul, which we had poked our nose in when we first stepped off the tram, then a service was about to start. Now we returned to give it our attention. Unlike the Catholic churches, there are usually far more tourists than the faithful, so one does not feel out of place poking about into chapels and other corners, examining its architectural features with our amateur eyes and today listening to the organist practice for the next service. It retains its 15^th century origins although has had several new additions, including a rather colourful lantern tower. We rather liked the cathedral, although it would hardly stand up amongst the grand cathedrals of England; it is a poor cousin to most.

After such a muddly day’s exploration, we took the tram back to Nunnery Square and drove without event back to camp, now through clearer weather, although rain has started since.