Wednesday, 27 October, 2021
We stayed in bed till late. It was nice to not be rushing about. Then some time before noon we went to the bus stop. A day bus and tram pass is £5.10 so we got one each. My London bus pass is good for any bus but doesn’t work on trams.
There was just a driver and a ‘learner’ and us on board. The driver said we’d definitely know when we reached our stop – Kelham Island. Where exactly were we going, he asked. No clue, we said. He smiled. We sailed through the centre of town and it got woodsy very quickly. The houses start to look more like you’re in Yorkshire and there are pockets of new housing areas. But, as Krish pointed, the edge of the city and the countryside isn’t very far at all. The bus pulled over, its first stop. This is Kelham Island, said the bus driver, all this (gesturing with his arms). We’ll just get out here and explore, said Krish It’s a great area that the River Don weaves through. Old mill houses and factories long forgotten but it was fascinating to imagine the time gone by. Some buildings are beautifully preserved or restored or repurposed, but with so much dereliction there are very interesting new builds, some almost Scandinavian looking. Must be the forest effect
A building off the main road had caught my eye so we headed towards it. Along the way there was an art trail with plenty to photograph. (There are a lot of street art photos to show, but so many that I’ve decided not to post any here but make a whole page of them as part of my Sheffield ‘series.’ I know there’s much more to see, but not this time.) I noticed a few people heading down the road too, all with takeaway food boxes and I began to wonder if perhaps there was no food down here. That wasn’t a pleasant thought since I was pretty hungry and getting lightheaded. I hoped there would be at least a corner shop somewhere. Meanwhile the streets were very interesting and looked they might have housed factory workers at one time. We crossed a bridge over a lovely river with a weir. This was a nature reserve and there were quite a few ducks. Downstream I could see the Kelham Island Museum. It was difficult to figure out how to approach it so we followed the road around and hoped it would eventually be clear. At the end of the road, just over the river was the building I’d spotted. There was a bit of facadism but the factory building was pretty much intact, stretching to the bottom of the road around the corner for some distance. It was now residences.
I really needed to eat but so many places were closed, till evening or forever. I saw a café that I’d read about and went in. It was so warm and lively in there but every seat was taken so I bought some orange juice and we carried on.
Around here were some old buildings, but also new housing. There were hoardings and some construction and older buildings that were now commercial or office space. There was clearly a lot of regeneration in this area. Already I was telling myself, This would be my place.
And now we could see the museum in sight so we made a beeline down beside a canal lined with old factories and the odd shop, none selling food.
Outside the museum were very large pieces of machinery including an enormous melting cauldron (as we guessed it was – in my hypoglycaemic state of mind, reading plaques was out of the question).
Inside the museum entrance hall we looked briefly at the walls. I had thought we might go to a place called The Cutlery Works, a sort of modern food hall (called the largest in the north) inside an old cutlery manufacturers (a mainstay of the area). I’d meant to go there at the beginning of our exploration and avoid a low blood sugar crisis, but we’d not found it. The bus driver had said ‘All this is Kelham Island’ so I thought it would be apparent, but no. A museum volunteer offered me a museum map and I told her we couldn’t stay today and asked her if she knew where The Cutlery Works was. She seemed puzzled, shook her head, and told us we could go the museum café across the walk. Sadly, their café smelled like Brenda’s so we left. The museum might have been fascinating (she promised steam engines) but food was more important right now. Just up the road, we found a little pizza place serving pizza from noon. It was 1:30pm so I ordered one. The server went away, came back, and said the oven wasn’t ready. That little bottle of OJ saved me from fainting and we headed along and saw a main road and…Tesco!! Lifesaver. I got a pork pie and some Maltesers and had two bites of the pie, determined to feel human again and ready to explore some more.
There was the River Don. And an obelisk with mill stones stuffed with rubbish. Oh dear. Then we saw a building with a piece of art from Phlegm, Sheffield’s most known artist, and when we went around to the front it was a German pub. We went in and shared a ridiculous plate of thick schnitzel, bratwurst and some pickles and fries. Not the best, but at least edible and between us we were full and ready to go.
We considered again going to The Cutlery Works but I couldn’t make sense of the map and now we’d already eaten. Which way should we go? Should we turn back? Could I manage more Kelham Island? In the end, we decided that we’d head back towards town and see what we could see along the way. We looked for a bus. Nothing in sight and so we walked towards some spires that we guessed were in town. Still no bus stop, although one or two wandered by without stopping anywhere. We found a good cut-through street that seemed to be a trendy oasis between two older areas and explored just a little more. At the end of the street we turned again and found some old factory buildings leading towards a main road.
Up and down (Sheffield is hilly) and then I asked a student, how do we get into town? If you go along this road all the way to the end, you’re in the centre. I want a bus, I said. No, she said. Maybe she was wrong. We saw a man on the street and asked again, Where’s a bus into town? You ARE in town.
Were we? Well, not that far from the centre, but my legs were done, and another but – NO BUSES. He’d pointed towards the same street the student had been on, so we went there. There was construction on the corner but then the street became very interesting.
It was a lovely street to walk along. More repurposed old buildings dating from 1700 and some very old municipal buildings. Krish wandered up a hill I didn’t dare climb and saw a synagogue turned into flats so I missed that, but he sent me a photo so I could see it too and I’ve included it here. I took more photographs, rested a little on some steps outside an office building, and told myself that my knees might hurt but I’d never have discovered this had we found a bus. It helped…sort of.
I suspected this area – called first Queen Street and then Bank Street – might have been the original municipal centre of town. I was right. It used to be the main business street.
We found our way to a stop finally and got out where the trams are. They only go across town, three lines. We rode a few stops, then back five stops and I told Krish I’d find a bus to the hotel and he should explore alone.
It’s interesting finding your way around when you’re on your own. I wanted to find the same bus back to the hotel that had brought me this way, but I couldn’t see where it stopped. It seemed the way back wasn’t an exact version of the way here, but I followed the road around to where I assumed there would be buses going my way. There were, in fact, three bus stops with several routes at each. I took the first bus from the list that Google showed me. 
I think Google led me slightly astray!
The bus route showed me I was only three stops away. Funnily, the stop before mine was the Interchange near the station. When I got out, I felt confused. The name of the stop on the map was not the name of the stop in reality. I thought perhaps I’d made a mistake. I looked both ways and chose the most likely and peopled route – a pedestrian area with a lot of university student. I asked where Arundel Gate was. She repeated it with a different pronunciation – lesson learned. I was just half a block from the hotel and, as soon as she showed me the right way, I could see it ahead of me.
So it was a bit of an adventure finding my way from the destination stop to the hotel but I did it. Rest time.
All the Sheffield blog links:
Sheffield (part one) – A long-awaited exploration – Arriving
Sheffield (part two) – Kelham Island mostly
Sheffield (part three)- An evening out and the next morning – Leaving
Sheffield (part four) – All the street art