June 'Focus On':Layout 1
12/5/15
12:53
Page 26
FOCUS ON: SHEFFIELD
The ‘Steel City’ of Sheffield is shrugging off its industrial past to
regain its status as a destination for antiques lovers and collectors
The new sign for the Antiques Quarter
Barkers Pool between the Devonshire Quarter and Fargate
Sheffield was recently described, rather
harshly, as one of the least historic cities in
the United Kingdom, internationally known
for not much more than its cutlery and
snooker championships. But there was a
time in its not too distant past when the
city was a thriving hub for collectors. In fact
when Sheffield Antiques Emporium opened
its doors on Clyde Road more than 20
years ago, lorries with foreign number
plates queued down the Abbeydale Road
waiting to fill up with English antiques. But,
in common with other towns, a
combination of the global downturn and
the internet put paid to trade. However
things are starting to look up. New signage
from Sheffield City Council carries the
slogan Welcome to Antiques Quarter at four
locations around the south of the city,
together with the chandelier logo - the
nationally-recognised symbol for antiques.
Abbeydale Road has been resurrected and
alongside the emporium several other
centres have sprung up selling everything
from antiques to vinyl records.
Old Sheffield
Sheffield’s medieval origins date back to a
small settlement by the rivers Don and
Sheaf (from which it gets its name). The
first reference to a Sheffield cutler dates to
1297, when ‘Robert the Cutler’ was
mentioned in a tax return. In the 1370s,
Chaucer described a Sheffield ‘thwitel’ (a
straight wooden-handled knife) on the belt
of a miller in The Reeve’s Tale.
In the 16th century Sheffield began to
specialise in cutlery with the arrival of skilful
Flemish immigrants, leading to the
establishment of a Company of Cutlers in
1624. In the 1740s Benjamin Huntsman
(1704-1776), a Sheffield man born to
German parents pioneered huge
improvements to steel making. Bars of
steel, mixed with fluxes, were fused in
closed clay crucibles under intense heat
within a coke-fired furnace. The result
became the standard for the cutlery trade.
Sheffield’s Antiques Quarter hosts the Pedlars
Corner Community Flea Market on the first Sunday
of the month, the Vintage Flea Market is on July12
Sheffield’s Town Hall is in the Northern Renaissance
style. It is crowned by a statue of Vulcan, the Roman
god of fire representing the city’s industrial history
An 18th-century Sheffield plate snuff box,
unmarked, English c. 1745-1760, D. 5.2cm. It
shows a pair of lovers in a setting of Rococo scrolls
26