Savile Town Marina, Dewsbury, South Yorkshire

The Chauffeur was keen to return to Sheffield to see that everything we had missed on Sunday, and I was happy to go along with the plan. We travelled south down the M1 as we had two days ago, today the mist more mirk and would have arrived before 9.30 am had we entered the city on the same pre-travelled route, but Tomtom had different ideas today. She took us through the centre of the old heavy industrial part of the city, slow with traffic lights and early morning traffic, and little beauty to lift the mood. We found ourselves in a strange little spot that turned out to be across the tramway and some distance by car from the Park & Ride we were seeking.

By the time we arrived in the city centre, the Visitor Centre was open, although the art gallery not yet. We withdrew to the library and I was over fifty pages into a Large Print version of an Oscar Wilde play when Chris found me and suggested we relocate to the Art Gallery.

The Central Library and Graves Gallery on the third floor, was opened in 1934, a state of art facility with heating, artificial ventilation and five lifts, built with the support of business man John George Graves, who made his fortunes out of the one of the country’s earliest mail order business, first selling watches and then a wide variety of goods. He also gifted almost seven hundred paintings to kick start the collection. Today there are many fine works hanging in the gallery including those by Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, L S Lowry, Burne-Jones, William Blake,  just to mention a few artists with whose names I am familiar. A massive work by the very weird Grayson Perry, an eight metre tapestry representing the “comfort blanket of Britain” impressed me greatly. Actually I have seen some wonderful work by this cross-dressing oddball, which goes to show you shouldn’t form opinions based solely on a person’s appearance.  There are several galleries filled with very modern work, of the kind that leaves both of us cold and which can be passed through at regular walking pace. We thought the size of the gallery rather poor given the size of the city, particularly given its generous seed collection and had thought it would hold our attention for longer. 

We lunched in the lovely Winter Gardens, then set off to various points of the centre to explore significant buildings we had missed out on Sunday. The first was the City Hall, Yorkshire’s premier music venue and conference centre. This Grade II listed building was designed in 1920 but not completed until 1932, the construction delay due to financial constraints. Its a neo-classical building with a giant portico and the largest hall in the building, the Oval Hall, seats 2,271 people. The Grand Willis III Organ is the largest in Sheffield with over 4,000 pipes and four manuals, however we saw none of this only able to see the booking hall which in itself is quite lovely.

The second was the Town Hall, completed in 1897 and extended in 1923, which is used by the Sheffield City Council and not open to the public. We did poke our nose into the foyer and ask the customer relations officer if we could look around; we were allowed only in the Main Entrance Hall where we were able to admire the grand marble staircase and the wonderful wall friezes.

The Cutler’s Hall, an imposing building built in 1832, also Grade II listed, is the third metamorphosis of the headquarters of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1624 and in 1638, to regulate the industry of the cutlery trade. We were stopped at the front door by a stern chap who obviously had appointed himself the gatekeeper . Today the building is used for many of the grandest events in the city’s civic and commercial life of the city, and is not open to casual visitors such as ourselves. 

From here we set off down the hill from the centre of the city in search of the Victoria Quays, which had caught our attention from the tram. Alas this glimpse promised more than the reality, so we spent most of our time around the waterways walking the towpaths and along the river.

Sheffield’s canal basin was opened in 1819 as the terminus for the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal, this fulfilling a long held ambition to connect Sheffield to the sea via the Trent and Humber. Even by 1848 the canal was being replaced by the railway, and over the intervening years the area slid into decline, although some commercial use was made of the area until the early 1970s.

For over twenty years large scale developers put forward comprehensive proposals for the total twenty acre site, but no start was made; difficult market conditions and the derelict state of the buildings the main obstacles. Then in 1992 the Sheffield Development Corporation, helped by British Waterways, adopted a new approach in which the site was broken down into smaller more manageable development parcels, with appropriate solutions then being sought for each part. The site was renamed Victoria Quays at that time, due to its proximity to the former Victoria Railway Station. However, even though publicity and guides suggest that the area is now a hive of business and activity, we found it rather depressed. I would say it is still very much a work in progress.

We walked for half an hour toward Rotherham along the canal, the path littered and unattractive, the water a filthy soup, yet being fished by two taciturn chaps, and the surrounding buildings ugly, old and derelict. Having reached a point beyond our tear-off map, we found our way across to the River Don and headed back toward the city along the Five Weirs Walk, the water here a little more appealing or at least enough so for the ducks and other water birds about. The walkway took us past old abandoned warehouses, covered in graffitti, under dark bridges, and then reaching new highrise commercial buildings, alongside rather strange art installations in the middle of the river. Clusters and cairns of stone and steel stand like dwarf piles in the middle of the river, with little signs explaining the sentiment behind some of them, many of this quite thought provoking even if a little pretentious. From here it was all uphill back to the cathedral where we caught the tram back to the Park & Ride, and so back home.

Savile Town Marina, Dewsbury, South Yorkshire

Morning rain kept us indoors as it does most people who have no urgent plans for the day. Breakfast television featured for longer than I generally care and we did pop out to the supermarket. One positive that came out of all this inactivity was booking ahead for the days immediately after we leave Yorkshire.

But after lunch of toasted sandwiches and delicious maple pecan pastries, just the thing to eat on such a sedientary day, we decided the rain had diminished enough to allow exploration of Dewsbury, this town we have spent nearly a week camped in and seen little of.

Dewsbury has a population of nearon 65,000 people and as such is the largest town in the Heavy Woolen District, a clutch of small wool towns. The town was caught up in the industrialisation that pervaded the area through the late 18^th and 19^th centuries, but  stood out from the others by its political stands against the establishment. 

In the 19^th century, Dewsbury was a centre of Luddite opposition to mechanisation in which workers retaliated against mill owners who installed machinery, smashing the machines which threatened their way of life. In the 1830s, the town was a centre of Chartist agitation, and hit the headlines in 1838 when a mob of between five and seven thousand people rioted. Troops were engaged to quell the trouble, and again in 1870 when the mobs rose again.

The mills were family businesses and continued manufacturing even after the wool crisis in the early 1950s when Australian sheep farmers raised their prices. Recovery of the late 1960s was stalled by the oil crisis of 1973, and spelled the end of the textile industry, with only bed manufacturing remaining a significant emplorer.

Today as we walked about we were surprised by the extent of the shopping area, although much of it quite shabby. Most of the average franchised businesses feature, but little by way of smart shops, there are several outlets selling eastern clothing and more than its fair share of money lenders. The shoppers out and about were mainly made up of down-at-heel white folk or more swarthy types clad head to toe in dark robes, the women’s heads in full niqab, their sequin clad shoes peeping out from under their hems.

We were surprised to discover the extensive market, which operates four days a week and not on Mondays. There are apparently four hundred stalls here and it is reportedly the busiest market in Yorkshire. While the produce and items for sale are probably the same old, same old, it would indeed be interesting to see the seething masses of such a cosmopolitan population, many apparently arriving by the busload.

There are several grand old buildings about, most looking rather out of place in this has-been town, a place where real estate is some of the cheapest in the country and there appears little to redeem it. The Town Hall built in Renaisance Revival was opened in 1889 and the seven hundred seat concert hall still offers entertainment and any other activity that might suggest life.

The Minster is more impressive, not so much from its exterior which was originally built in the 13^th century, then rebuilt in 1895, but the more recently remodelled interior. Today the space mostly used for regular church services is a mere portion of the original and the rest of the interior is divided into other useful rooms. The two elderly ladies manning the reception were delightful and kept us entertained with the more recent history of the church.

Outside we discovered a plaque with a few important facts about the Minster, and more interesting and given our recent travels, the fact that Patrick Bronte, father of the Bronte novelists, was curate here from 1809 to 1811.

We retreated to the large retail outlets on the edge of town, and shopped for clothes and towball covers, as you do, then headed home with our booty; hardly an energetic day.

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.