During the second world war some completed girder work stood at the corner of Flat Street. When the war ended it was showing signs of rust and was painted — which means that someone still owned it. Rumour had it — rumours abounded in wartime — that the girder work had been erected on behalf of the Daily Mail, which intended to build its headquarters there. Rumour also had it that Kemsley Newspapers, then owners of the Sheffield Telegraph and Star, took a dim view of it and bought the site to prevent the Daily Mail from using it. After the war, the girder work was re-arranged and it became a cinema.
I can’t really believe the rumours, but the girders were already in place and somebody would have built something if the war hadn’t intervened. Does anyone know who that somebody was? Or were the rumours right, and it was the Daily Mail?

I remember the exposed steelwork on the site at the corner of Flat's Street and what used to be the bottom of Norfolk Street. The building was eventually finished and opened in 1954 as The Odeon.

I don't remember any major structural changes. Steelwork to be added to the original skeltal frame was already on the site but was never installed during the initial construction. I think it was just cleaned and painted at site before being finally erected.

Regards

Thanks Falls — you’re probably right. Now you mention it there was some additional steelwork piled up on the site. Quite a lot of it. Maybe it was already planned for a cinema. I’ll just have to wait and see — and wonder!

I think you'll find that it was to be a cinema but building was stopped in 1939 because of the war.