Sheffield retro: Campo Lane's fascinating history, from rat killing pits to vintage shop and eco cafe

In recent memory the exclusive home of lawyers and estate agents plus a racier sprinkling of journalists, for some years it’s been looping back to its original more residential character with a selection of independent shops and eateries. But it has always had an edgier side and has gone through several reinventions in its 250 year history.

So - Campo – shades of Last of the Summer Wine? No, and probably not evidence of a Roman camp either. Apparently it was ‘Camper Lane’ - an old word for a football field, although it’s hard to picture where in this particularly hilly neighbourhood.

It appears on a 1736 map as a narrow track skirting the church graveyard from the built-up Hartshead through small fields known as ‘the Crofts’ to ‘Townhead’, then the edge of town. This began to change when Joseph Broadbent, a successful Quaker scissor maker turned his family house at Hartshead into one of Sheffield’s first banks and began to build houses on Hicks Style Field.

Sheffield’s first middle class suburb

This became Sheffield’s first middle class suburb – Paradise Row. Sadly his bank went bust but his house remains on the corner of Figtree Lane still called Broadbent House. Paradise Square, apparently named for marketing rather than religious reasons, was quickly occupied by lawyers, doctors and other professionals,setting the pattern for the next 250 years.

But it also became Pot Square, a marketplace and principle venue for frequent rumbustious religious and political gatherings. Proximity to the churchyard also brought problems as the ancient burial ground became so full that it became a serious health hazard, until the establishment of a new out of town General Cemetery.

There were also four schools on Campo Lane – the Bluecoat Charity School on East Parade, the Girls Charity on St James Row, the Town Grammar School and the Reading Academy at Townhead. In the absence of anything resembling playgrounds the churchyard was used for furious football and other children’s games, to the consternation of the congregation and neighbours. Eventually the Bluecoats created a playground on their roof, the railings of which are still visible today.

Centre of Sheffield’s news industry

For 200 years, Hartshead was also the centre of Sheffield’s news industry with the Independent, Iris, Star and Telegraph with their associated noisy presses located around the small square. Radio Hallam also began life in a studio here. This era ended when the Star and Telegraph moved first their printworks and then their editorial, leaving the building to become an apartment block.

As Victorian Sheffield grew, professionals relocated to the suburbs, leaving their offices in Cathedral Quarter, but the population swelled. The Crofts fields were built over with a dense mass of very poor housing and numerous pubs, famous for rowdy entertainments including rat killing pits.

In the 1900s, the Corporation cleared the slums replacing them with Sheffield’s first council flats at Croft House and Hawley Street. Twenty years later another Council plan demolished the entire northern side of Campo Lane for street widening removing several notorious pubs. Curiously, most of the new lawyers chambers which replaced them simply copied the style and proportions of the Old Bank, creating a series of similar double-fronted neo-Georgian buildings as far as Paradise Street. Widening also exposed the back yards of Paradise Square, creating the odd one storey range which became the Wig and Pen.

Bombs destroy much of the area

However, this new look was again seriously disrupted a little over a decade later when bombs destroyed much of Hartshead and western Campo Lane, damaging parts of the council flats. Hartshead was rebuilt quite quickly and the flats were patched up, some of few homes in the city centre until the late 1990s. The rest of this area stayed as cleared car parks until the late 60s when the St James tower – then the tallest building in the centre - was built over a multi-storey car park and the new Golden Ball pub (now Couch).

In the late ‘90s new apartments and shops were built on Vicar Lane, beginning the reclaiming of Cathedral Quarter to residential, as larger professionals decamped to more IT-friendly office blocks. Michael Ibbotson’s family printing and stationary business Clough Ibbotson celebrates its centenary this year and has operated on Campo since the 1960s. His customers have shifted from professionals to students but he’s still busy.

The new residents have encouraged a wider range of shops and cafes on Campo Lane. One of these is David Saxby’s elegant Vintage shop which exudes the air of an old-fashioned tailor. His regular customers, he says, are overwhelmingly from the large far eastern student community who now live around the Cathedral and St Vincents. Thanks to the internet his business is better known in China than in Sheffield. He sings in the Chinese rock band ‘Bottlecap’.

Typical of the new businesses on Campo Lane is Tig’s bustling plant-based café run by brother and sister Tupelo and Dignity Froud (yes their parents were hippies). They have been open for 18 months and have noticed a growing footfall and feeling of optimism as the street reinvents itself again.

Tupelo also observes that it’s still a street where different worlds collide including remaining lawyers and estate agents, affluent overseas students and street sleepers and addicts who use the Cathedral’s long established Archer Project . This can be uncomfortable, but it’s not by any means the first time Campo Lane has seen such contrasts in its long history.