New life on the cards at former museum in Sheffield

The Ecclesall Road building - originally a church hall - has been empty since the museum closed in 2011, when owners Sheffield University said it could not afford the ‘very significant capital investment’ needed to maintain it.

The 4,945 sq ft building, plus cellars, is being offered on a full repairing lease - where the tenant covers the cost of maintenance and insurance.

Documents from SMC Chartered Surveyors, the firm handling the property, said rent of around £100,000 per year is being sought, on the assumption that A3 or A4 planning consent can be obtained.

These categories would include a restaurant, café, pub or bar, but not a nightclub.

The building is next to The Well baptist church, formerly the Horizon Methodist Church, and close to the Pointing Dog bar, Nonna’s and the Porter Brook pub.

The museum opened in 1985, and contained walk-through displays including a replica kitchen from the 1920s and shops from Sheffield’s past.

It closed in February 2011 for the university to carry out an assessment of the hall’s condition. The following October the university said it did not have the funds ‘to meet the necessary standards required of a public building’.

Some 46,000 items required new homes when the museum shut. The bulk of its collections went to Green Estate, operators of Sheffield Manor Lodge. Many were used in the site’s World War Two ‘living history’ cottages.