Sheffield then and now pictures look back to the city's famous Wedding Cake register office
Our then and now pictures show the 1970s-built Sheffield Register Office, a city centre landmark known affectionately as the Wedding Cake because of its round shape.
The register office, where 30,000 couples got married over its lifetime, celebrated its 30th birthday in 2003 and the decision to demolish it was confirmed in October of that year.
Along with the Yorkshire Grey pub, the Wedding Cake was knocked down to make way for a phase of the Heart of the City project, being replaced by the Charles Street ‘Cheese Grater’ multi-storey car park and Millennium Square with its offices, restaurants and apartments.
That area of the city started to look completely different with Millennium Square/St Paul’s Place linking up to the new-look Peace Gardens, Winter Gardens, Millennium Gallery and Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, as well as the huge St Paul’s City Lofts apartment block.
These days, the city’s register office is housed in the far more grandiose Victorian surroundings of the town hall. Happy couples and their guests spill out of the back door near the fountain in the Peace Gardens – just across from where the Wedding Cake once stood.
1. Then: the Wedding Cake
Sheffield's 'Wedding Cake' Register Office with the Polytechnic, left, and Sheaf Valley and Norfolk Park in the background, 1982
Photo: Sheffield Newspapers
2. Cake's eye view
A bird's eye view of the 'Egg Box' Town Hall extension and the 'Wedding Cake' register office in the 1990s
Photo: Sheffield Newspapers
3. Cake maker
Architect Jan Katt, who designed the Wedding Cake register office, pictured on Feb 18, 1972
Photo: unknown
4. Wedding first
Joan Frampton and Joseph Graham, who were the first couple to marry at the new Sheffield Register Office
Photo: ©Sheffield Newspapers Ltd