Developer ordered to keep historic chimneys. Removes them anyway.

Update: we have it on good authority that although CITU’s name appears on the drawings they are *not* the developer of this site. We are happy to correct the record in this regard.

It has seen catastrophic mill fires, a cholera epidemic and the Great Sheffield Flood. It is all that remains of Sheffield’s giant cotton mill and workhouse. Most of it has lasted over 180 years, and some parts may date from 1805 or even earlier, making it the earliest standing building in Kelham Island.

It is one of Sheffield’s survivors, but can it survive the depredations of developers? Nearly three years ago permission was granted to gut this fragile historic building in Alma Street and shoehorn fourteen homes into the shell, evicting some of the last industrial craftsmen in Kelham in the process. It was controversial, taking three meetings of the Planning Committee to come to a decision. Approval was granted only on the strict understanding that the chimneys, essential to so much of the city’s precious industrial heritage, would be left in place at all times.

Now those chimneys have been removed, the very action that the planning permission makes clear is forbidden.

HHB’s position on this is quite clear: we call for the chimneys to be immediately reinstated. No ifs, no buts, no delays, no distractions. No waiting while they agree other details of the planning permission or until it is convenient to get the builders in. Planning rules apply to everyone, and the damage done to this multi-layered historic building in the country’s first industrial conservation area must be repaired.

Sheffield is blighted by owners of historic buildings who don’t care for them. The butchery recently approved to the Highfield Cocoa and Coffee House in London Road is just the latest in a disgraceful line. The state of the Old Town Hall in Waingate remains a scar on the city. The Citadel was kept in limbo for years by its previous owner, with at least six schemes granted permission, but none enacted. The former owners of Cornish Works at Kelham thought saving heritage so important that they suggested demolition (but only as a “last resort”).

If the Council is serious about its recently-adopted Heritage Strategy and its aspiration to gain a reputation for valuing historic buildings it needs to insist that as a bare minimum developers comply with its planning decisions. There should be consequences for those that do not.

What can I do?

If you are as concerned as we are by the loss of the city’s history, write to your ward councillors. You can find out who these are and how to contact them at https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx. Send a copy of your message to the Council’s Heritage Champion, Janet Ridler, at Janet.Ridler@councillor.sheffield.gov.uk. Janet works hard behind the scenes to change attitudes at the Council, and hearing how much the public values heritage helps to make the case for change.

History of the Alma Street building

The building has a long and interesting history taking in several of Sheffield’s historic industries and events.

1. Evolution of the building: early years to 1843

1. 1. A water-powered silk mill was built in 1758 on a secondary goit which leaves the main Kelham Island goit just upstream of Kelham Wheel, as shown on a map of 1773. This also shows a house and a former cutler’s wheel, the latter in ruins, between the two goits, but neither corresponds with the Alma Street building. The silk mill was subsequently converted to a cotton mill.[i]
   2. In 1792 the cotton mill was destroyed by fire and entirely rebuilt on a different footprint, as shown on a plan of 1805. This also shows a building largely corresponding with the footprint of the Alma Street building, and it is likely that what is now the central section of the latter was created during the rebuilding.[ii]
   3. A second fire took place in 1810, and the cotton mill was then rebuilt on a larger scale, as shown on a plan of 1815. This shows exactly the same building on the Alma Street footprint as in 1805, implying that it survived the fire owing to being separated from the main mill building.[iii]
   4. In 1815 the building shown consists of kitchen, roller shop, iron turners shop, tinner’s shop and millwright’s shop. The roller shop and iron turners shop correspond exactly with the central section of the building today, indicating that this part of the building has existed since at latest 1805 and potentially since 1792 when the cotton mill was first rebuilt.
   5. In 1828 the Overseers of the Poor resolved to move the workhouse from its inadequate accommodation in West Bar. The cotton mill had ceased operation and was vacant, so plans were prepared for its conversion to a workhouse. The roller shop and iron turners shop were to become the kitchen, laundry, matron’s bedroom, school bedroom and lunatic’s room, retaining the building of 1805 or earlier.[iv]
   6. The former kitchen at the west end is shown as having three floors, making it unlikely that this is part of the surviving building, although as its overall height is the same as other two-storey sections it is possible that it was remodelled. To the east is another three-storey section, also of uniform height, and a one-storey schoolroom. These have a different footprint to the surviving building.
   7. The workhouse moved to the cotton mill in 1829.[v] Late in 1831, in anticipation of the cholera epidemic spreading to Sheffield, the Board of Health proposed using the upper floors of the workhouse as an isolation hospital. [vi]There was also a need identified for a House of Observation or Recovery, and this was “expressly erected” somewhere near the workhouse. Both were used when cholera hit the town in 1832.[vii]
   8. Apart from the Cholera Monument and grounds, there is little built heritage with any association with the cholera epidemic, which claimed over 50,000 lives nationally, including 402 in Sheffield, one of those being the Master Cutler.[viii] The workhouse was pivotal in the treatment and recovery of patients, and the Alma Street building is the last connected in any way with that practical requirement.
2. Evolution of the building: 1843 onward
3. 1. An Ordnance Survey map of 1851 shows the western end remodelled and the eastern three-storey block and single-storey schoolroom replaced or rebuilt. The small extension that exists today at the west end is not shown; and a return is shown southwards into Cotton Street that does not exist today. Otherwise, the building corresponds exactly in footprint and structure with the Alma Street building of today.[ix]
   2. The workhouse underwent alterations in 1843 at a cost of £6,000.[x] This may have included the alterations described above, although these could have been made at any time since the 1828 plans. The lath and plaster ceilings in the replaced eastern part of the building are consistent with the domestic uses of a workhouse.
   3. On the night of 11th March 1864 the newly-constructed Dale Dyke dam burst its embankment releasing a flood that remains the country’s largest man-made peacetime disaster, taking the lives of at least 250 people and destroying property, homes and livelihoods. A flood indicator on the Fat Cat public house in Alma Street shows that the street was under water, and the ground floor of the workhouse was reported as flooded to a depth of four feet. The upper floors were nonetheless pressed into service as a morgue for 124 of the victims.[xi] The Alma Street building is the last relic of the workhouse and its role in this nationally-significant event.
   4. After protracted negotiations with the Poor Law Board the Guardians made arrangements to build a new workhouse at Firvale, and in 1881 the Kelham Island workhouse closed. In 1882 all the workhouse buildings became part of Ibbotson Bros.’ Globe Steel Works, which took its name from their former premises at Globe Works.[xii]
   5. Ibbotson Brothers had built the Globe Works on Penistone Road in 1825. William Ibbotson was well-known for his hostility to trade unions, and the works were subject to a gunpowder attack in 1843, an early incident in the Sheffield Outrages. The firm moved to premises in Russell Street and Alma Street adjacent to the workhouse in 1862, naming it Globe Steel Works.
   6. From 1882 Ibbotson Bros. took over the workhouse site itself, using the Alma Street building for office accommodation.[xiii] An OS map of 1889 shows the final changes since 1851: a small additional extension to the west and the removal of the return to Cotton Street at the east end.[xiv] The site was in use until the 1970s.[xv]
   7. The building today appears little altered since the 19th century. The render may have been added in the mid 20th century. Aerial photographs up to 1951 appear to show dark brickwork with lighter areas of repointing.[xvi] External walls, solid internal divisions and all but the westernmost chimney stack remain as in 1851.

[i] Christine Ball, David Crossley and Neville Flavell, Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers, 2nd edition (Sheffield: South Yorkshire Industrial History Society, 2006), 21.

[ii] Sheffield: Spring Street, Colson Crofts measured for the Duke of Norfolk, including the Cotton Mill 1805, FC/P/SheS/315L, Sheffield City Archives.

[iii] Kelham Street, The Cotton Factory, the Cotton Mill (formerly Kelham Wheel) etc in lots for sale 1815, FC/P/SheS/300L, Sheffield City Archives.

[iv] Workhouse plans and elevations 1828, FC/P/EBu/99S-111S, Sheffield City Archives.

[v] T. J. Caulton, The Sheffield Workhouse near Kelham Island, in Aspects of Sheffield 1 ed. Melvyn Jones (Barnsley: Wharncliffe Publishing, 1997), 169.

[vi] John Stokes, The History of the Cholera Epidemic of 1832 in Sheffield (Sheffield: J. W. Northend, 1921), 16.

[vii] Ibid., 41.

[viii] Sheffield City Council, Sources for the Study of Cholera in Sheffield (Sheffield: Sheffield Libraries Archives and Information, 2015), 4 and 8, https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries-archives/access-archives-local-studies-library/research-guides/cholera-epidemic, accessed 3 January 2023.

[ix] Ordnance Survey, Sheffield Sheets 13 and 20 [map], Surveyed 1851, 1:1056 (London: Ordnance Map Office, 1852).

[x] “The Workhouse – The story of an institution”, Peter Higginbottom, accessed 3 January 2023, https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Sheffield/.

[xi] Samuel Harrison, A Complete History of the Great Flood at Sheffield (London & Sheffield: S. Harrison, 1864), 79.

[xii] Sheffield City Council, Kelham Island Industrial Conservation Area Statement of Special Interest (Sheffield City Council, 2000), 3, https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/planning-development/conservation-areas/kelham-island, accessed 4 January 2023.

[xiii] Former offices of Ibbotson Brothers and Co. Ltd., merchants and manufacturers, Globe Steel Works, Alma Street at junction with Cotton Street, 1986, digital photograph, accessed 4 January 2023, https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;t01080&pos=3&action=zoom&id=31540.

[xiv] Ordnance Survey, Sheet 294.8.6 [map], Surveyed 1889, 1:500.

[xv] “Is Your Name on a Knife?”, Geoff Tweedale, Accessed 4 January 2023, https://hawleysheffieldknives.com/n-fulldetails.php?val=iB&kel=719.

[xvi] Aerofilms, Historic England Photograph EAW040060, 1951, digital photograph, accessed 4 January 2023, https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/EAW040060.