When Sheffield Hallam University evacuate their Collegiate Campus it will be a huge change for this picturesque part of the city. As David Walsh’s article in the Star points out, seven of the buildings are listed. The campus is in the Broomhall Conservation Area, and several unlisted buildings are identified as being of merit. This should ensure that no historic buildings are threatened – but will it?
The Council’s draft Local Plan shows the area as a University zone and identifies it as suitable for student accommodation. Both uses look out of date, and the pressure for new housing sites makes the campus a major potential windfall. In the hands of a thoughtful developer who understands the value of heritage this could be a great opportunity to give the area and its historic buildings a new life and identity. Sadly, Sheffield also has experienced greedy, neglectful developers who think nothing of letting buildings decay, holding them to ransom in the hope of being allowed to demolish them.
It wouldn’t be the first such threat. Collegiate Hall, the fine former headmaster’s house of 1837, is listed, but demolition of its equally fine Edwardian wings was proposed in the early 2000s. Demolition of the 1836 Collegiate School, part of the campus Main Building, was considered as early as the 1970s. Demolition plans of around 2014 included Southbourne, the 1819 villa on Clarkehouse Road.
Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas enjoy statutory protection, but in Sheffield this seems to count for less than it should. The recent permission to demolish most of Clifford School on Psalter Lane, a major heritage asset in a Conservation Area, to create just four houses shows that no building can be considered safe. We at Hallamshire Historic Buildings are very concerned about the fate of the Collegiate buildings and will be monitoring developments carefully.
SHU’s Collegiate campus map shows just how many buildings they currently occupy in this area. On the Broomhall Conservation Area map (full version available here) buildings in green are of Townscape Merit – meaning that they contribute to the character of the area – and those in orange are listed by Historic England.
I’m a local resident on Eastgrove Road and we are very worried about the relocation of SHU from the Collegiate site, im also on your mailing list incidentally, we have been questioning SHU reps in the Good Neighbour Forum that has been set up by the two uni’s and local community groups and relevant local agencies. We’ve had nothing but obfuscation and quite frankly misinformation fed back to us in this forum. I have established some initial contact with both the Victorian and Edwardian Societies who have said they will assist/support. I think it would be appropriate to have a conversation on how we work together on this issue.
The Hallam Collegiate campus has multiple ways it could and should be utilized both keeping the listed buildings and making it a beacon for students. There cannot be many or even any other campuses in the world that can boast the opportunity to study sports science and even play football in the grounds of the grammar school building which educated the founders of the modern game of football (Google: Sheffield Collegiate School, Sheffield FC and the Sheffield Rules) not to mention the multitude of other historic links of huge note including but not limited to a house where Alfred Lord Tennyson stayed on occasion, a former Anglican grammar school which educated the first and only bishop of Hawaii who was an acquaintance of Charles Darwin, the founders of Sheffield University and hundreds more, a former Cathedral vicarage and a two hundred year old town house. Everything except the 1970s library should be listed.