I love Nether Edge - Sheffield's leafiest suburb to live where a relaxed walk is a trip out all on its own

Try it for yourself and head down Wolstenholm Street from Sharrow Lane. It’s like entering a bubble. In about fifty paces, the red-brick terraces and busier roads are left behind and individualism takes over.

This is Nether Edge, where no two houses look the same and every street is canopied by mature trees of every kind, and a place I want to shout about for The Star’s #LoveYour campaign.

I live in neighbouring Sharrow, but this past summer one of my favourite things to do on a spare evening was to get lost in Nether Edge. I cross Wolstenholm Street, enter ‘the bubble,’ and follow my nose taking random turns to see this incredible neighbourhood from every angle.

It’s on slow walks like this where, if you stop to look, you can see so much identity in each and every home. Historian John Baxendale writes how Nether Edge was shaped from 1850s to 1914 by many individual builders and wealthy speculators, each fashioning their own mansions and grandiose homes. It feels like each home was dreamt up, one by one, by the wealthiest members of whoever made up the Middle Class 150 years ago. It’s a chocolate box of vertices, orientations, slanted roofs and sweeping windows where, and were each once built as a proud statement to their neighbours.

On my walks I fantasize a little bit too much about putting my card through the doors of my favourite houses to see if the residents would let me do a feature for The Star - but I don’t really think they would appreciate it. I’ll keep my admiration to myself, then.

Nether Edge is now a beloved example of a preserved Victorian suburb, and some of the trees are as old as the homes. They are a part of the street furniture as much as the lamps, and grow right out the pavement like the world is being reclaimed by nature. I can respect the fury of residents during the Sheffield Tree Felling Scandal when these beautiful stately specimens were threatened.

If that’s the old-world charm, then the new-world aspect is how the ‘bubble’ is becalmed by a - controversial to some - 20mph restriction across every road. Well, I certainly enjoy it anyway. Further is the bevy of vibrant independent businesses, with the nucleus of charm at the crossroads of Machon Bank Road and Moncrieffe Road as a standout, particularly Cafe No.9, Bench and the well-stocked Oxfam charity shop.

I also have to applaud the many excellent gardens you can see. Walking the area in spring and summer honestly made me emotional. The unique houses are the expression of their builders 150 years ago, but the splashes of colour in their front gardens are are all the current owners’ doing. It makes you want to breath deeper while out on walks so as to catch the sweet scent of pollen in every street. Roses literally leaning out into the footpath begging you to stop and smell them.

I know all too well on these walks I will never ever get to live in this suburb I love so much. It’s no secret Nether Edge is pretty high on Sheffield’s list of most expensive areas to buy, and that was before the recent shower of accolades and recognition it’s received in recent years. The Sunday Times gave it flowers in 2024 by naming it one of the best places to live in the North, writing:

"Forget Totley and Dore, Whirlow and Millhouses, even Fulwood, and turn your attention to Nether Edge. Here you’ll find a happy community with cosy coffee shops where the barista knows your name, outstanding schools and annual neighbourhood-wide yard sales in front of Victorian houses that have been carefully updated with splashes of olive greens and soft taupes."

Well, that might ring the dinner bell to bring new buyers from around the nation, and I will never afford one of these unique homes as it is. I’m content to keep to my walks though. If you need a calming afternoon out and want to see Sheffield at its best, visit Nether Edge on foot and take it all in. there are many days to come in summer and spring when it will be a day out all on its own.