"Leah’s Yard is of great significance"

We at Hallamshire Historic Buildings are delighted to support the long-awaited application for stabilisation works and repairs to the historic Leah’s Yard in Cambridge Street.

Sheffield understood the importance of sites like Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and Shepherd Wheel a long time ago, but took a while to realise just how important its other industrial buildings were. In 2001, English Heritage (now Historic England), published a book, One Great Workshop, and since then it’s been understood how these buildings, humble though they often are, are monuments to our great industries, and give our city its unique character. Too many have been hastily demolished, such as Kangaroo Works, and Leah’s Yard has suffered a great deal from neglect, but now by bringing forward these proposals the council has shown a commitment to its future. There is real attention to detail: the heritage assessment runs to nearly 100 pages.

Many applications are submitted for which the required heritage impact assessment is of poor quality or missing altogether, so let’s hope that this is a signal to developers of the standards which they are required to meet.

Leah’s Yard is of great significance even on its own, it’s one of Sheffield’s 60 or so Grade II* listed buildings, with the potential for a development that truly celebrates Sheffield’s industrial heritage.

When stabilisation works are complete, we need a viable scheme to follow as quickly as possible that does the site full justice. Its context matters, too. Historic England have emphasised how important the other buildings in Cambridge Street are to Leah’s Yard, singling out the Tap & Tankard public house (formerly the Sportsman), and its adjacent shop for their contribution. They are closely connected: part of the current Leah’s Yard site was previously within the yards and buildings associated with the Sportsman. The role of beer in Sheffield’s hot, dusty, thirsty manufacturing processes is well-known, and pubs rubbed shoulders with factories across the city, but it’s quite rare to find one still embedded in the old works that it once lubricated.

Let’s hope that the detailed assessment made for Leah’s Yard is repeated for the Sportsman, and that the two can go forward together, as they have done for the last a century and a half.