CONSIDERING it's been gone for 15 years, it is quite something for the Hole In the Road to have a whole day devoted to it in October – if you'll excuse the pun.
One of the lesser highlights of Sheffield's Off the Shelf literary festival will be the Hole in the Road event at the Central Library, Surrey Street, on Saturday, October 18.
Sheffielders will be invited to drop in, admire the photographs (a black and white photo of the Hole is still one of the biggest sellers in a local gallery) and share their memories of one of the city's most iconic structures.
Of course, that was never its official name. Its Sunday-best moniker was Castle Square.
But nobody ever said "Meet you in Castle Square." They said to meet in the Hole in the Road and if they wanted to narrow it down a bit they said See you by the aquarium or Rackham's windows – they had a rather nice one for lingerie.
It was opened on November 27, 1967, and was claimed to be the first in Europe, with escalators, ramps and kiosks. By 1994 they'd filled it in with rubble from Hyde Park Flats to make way for Supertram.
But for just over a quarter of a century it became one of the best-loved things about Sheffield, even if it finished up a bit seedy in the end.
Hearing this got me thinking. Sheffield does have a habit of giving nicknames to its favourite buildings and then they take over from the official ones.
For example, you could say the Sheffield Town Hall Extension but it was so much quicker to say The Egg Box. Everyone knew what you meant.
And people might have said Register Office (they often said Registry Office and would have been quite wrong, even though that was on at least one city road sign) but the phrase everyone used was the Wedding Cake.
That's because all three looked exactly like their descriptions.
You couldn't deny that Charter Square was a hole and it was in the road so it became the Hole in the Road. Simple.
Likewise the Egg Box looked like one and you always thought they should put a model of a bride and groom on top of the Register Office and it would look just like a wedding cake.
I think we can see a pattern here. Put a building up, give it an affectionate name and then tear it down (or in the case of the Hole, fill it in).
There's going to be another. The Manpower Services building at the bottom of The Moor looks like it's got a date with the demolition men's ball.
I've always called it the Ziggurat because of its likeness to a Sumerian pyramid but it never caught on. They don't do O-level ancient history any more.
And then there's the Tinsley cooling towers. I've heard said they were known as the Salt and Pepper pots but that's a new one on me. Perhaps I should get out more in Tinsley.
But we all know what happened to them. Blown up.
So what do we give the chances of the Cheese Grater?
That's the multi-storey car park on Arundel Gate which has been dubbed that name by local people.
Only it has not been finally settled.
Some prefer the Sugar Cube and a third the Door Chimes.
Whatever it is finally called, you can bet your bottom dollar few people will call it the St Paul's Place Multi-Storey Car Park, which is what it actually is.
But now it's got a nickname, I for one am not reckoning too much on its chances of survival...
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FeaturesMore Rotherham newsMore Doncaster newsMore Barnsley newsCheck out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic sectionLatest sport. The full article contains 674 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
