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What was Sharrow like in the early 1970s?

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Anyone remember what the area was like then? Mostly terrace houses I think. Were they not pulled down in slum clearance in the mid 70s?

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Depends on which part of Sharrow you are referring to.

 

Parts were demolished in the sixties to build the Washington Road flats, the other side of Washington Road was demolished mid seventies.

 

Mount Pleasant Road, and Sherrington and Cecil Roads were demolished in 1978/9.

 

Yes they were considered "slum" but the street I lived on it was purely that thye had outside loos, and no bathrooms internally. They couldhave been "enveloped" and for a hundred/ 200 quid or so pr property, they could have been done up. It cost £250 in 1982/3 for my then fiance's mother's property to be renovated, and the back bedroom divided off into a small bedroom-with-adjoining-bathroom.

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Anyone remember what the area was like then? Mostly terrace houses I think. Were they not pulled down in slum clearance in the mid 70s?

 

My Grandma lived on Hobart Street, just off Sharrow Lane and I visited her regularly from the 40's through to the 60's. In those days it was a vibrant working class area of terraced houses with loads of corner shops on Club Garden Road and Sharrow Lane. My other Grandma lived on Club Street just off Club Garden Road. I recently looked on Google's Street View to find that the Hobart St property is still there, altho' probably modernised, whereas the house on Club Street has been replaced by flats/ maisonettes.

Like Plain Talker I cannot understand why some dwellings were considered suitable for improvement whilst others were condemned to be replaced by 60's brutalist architecture. Such is 'progress'.

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My Grandma lived on Hobart Street, just off Sharrow Lane and I visited her regularly from the 40's through to the 60's. In those days it was a vibrant working class area of terraced houses with loads of corner shops on Club Garden Road and Sharrow Lane. My other Grandma lived on Club Street just off Club Garden Road. I recently looked on Google's Street View to find that the Hobart St property is still there, altho' probably modernised, whereas the house on Club Street has been replaced by flats/ maisonettes.

Like Plain Talker I cannot understand why some dwellings were considered suitable for improvement whilst others were condemned to be replaced by 60's brutalist architecture. Such is 'progress'.

 

Particularly not for solid, brick-built housing to be replaced by such godawful jerry-built tat as the flats on the Washington road estate.

 

My ex hub lived in the same style flats in Netherthorpe (now demolished) as Washington Road, and they were truly awful, full of damp, and hard to head due to the construction methods.

 

I can understand the cruddy back-to-backs being demolished, as they really were, more often than not, unfit for habitation, but I have, for thirty years, puzzled this question.

 

The properties on Mount Pleasant, Horner, and Sherrington/ Cecil roads were similar to the properties yards away, on Vincent road and South View road. These were properties which were considered "Salvageable" and had that relatively minuscule amount of money spent on them, to upgrade to indoor sanitation.

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I cannot understand why some dwellings were considered suitable for improvement whilst others were condemned to be replaced by 60's brutalist architecture. Such is 'progress'.
I think a lot of the wholesale compulsory purchases and demolitions were due to the Labour thinking of the day.

 

They wanted to have everyone under the thumb and to be able to interfere in every little detail of their lives. Taking properties out of private ownership for a song and putting everyone into council tenancies was a good way of achieving that.

 

Later they decided that 'enveloping' was a more popular way to go. It was a great idea and certainly, for a time anyway, improved the look of areas. Although it did cost a lot of public money, it was done with more public approval than the breaking up and displacement of long established communities that the demolitions achieved.

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I think a lot of the wholesale compulsory purchases and demolitions were due to the Labour thinking of the day.

 

They wanted to have everyone under the thumb and to be able to interfere in every little detail of their lives. Taking properties out of private ownership for a song and putting everyone into council tenancies was a good way of achieving that.

 

Later they decided that 'enveloping' was a more popular way to go. It was a great idea and certainly, for a time anyway, improved the look of areas. Although it did cost a lot of public money, it was done with more public approval than the breaking up and displacement of long established communities that the demolitions achieved.

 

:nod: The council broke up communities like Darnall and Attercliffe in the 50's, 60's,and 70's. They did it with Sharrow, in the 60s and 70's, they did it with Manor in the eighties. (to name but a few - Pitsmoor, Ellesmere etc, etc, etc)

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Plain Talker, where were the back to back houses in Sheffield?

On my travels I came across lots in the Hunslet/Beeston areas of Leeds but can't recall noticing any in Sheffield. All the terraces I knew were of the 'through type ' with windows back and front. Perhaps I just didn't visit the right districts?

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Plain Talker, where were the back to back houses in Sheffield?

On my travels I came across lots in the Hunslet/Beeston areas of Leeds but can't recall noticing any in Sheffield. All the terraces I knew were of the 'through type ' with windows back and front. Perhaps I just didn't visit the right districts?

They were all demolished by the early 60s. Park Hill, where the 'listed' flats are now was a main area of backtobacks, but most inner city areas had some.

 

The time I'm talking about in my post above was in the late 60s onwards. The back to backs were all long gone by then. The terraced housing that was left could easily have been converted into decent housing, as can be seen by the condition of the ones that were left standing.

Edited by rubydazzler

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Fawcett Street and surrounding area, (the last two properties My grandparents lived inon Fawcett street until they were clearanced in 1957 were back to backs) Attercliffe, had them, Stewart Road, in Hunters Bar, Leverton (where the three recently refurbished high rise are, at the bottom of the Lansdowne development...) lots in Broomhall. There were shedloads in the "Park" district, as Rubydazzler mentioned.

 

There were loads in Pitsmoor/ ellesmere/ woodside, too...

Edited by Plain Talker

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In another thread, specifically about back to backs, someone mentioned Stewart Road at Hunters Bar having some BTB properties still standing, in the early to mid seventies.

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back to backs in the netherthorpe/ upperthorpe/ kelvin area, too (demolished to build the Kelvin Flats)

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Thanks Ruby.

I must admit that I can't recall what existed where the Park Hill Flats are prior to their construction. My early compass areas were Heeley, Highfields, Lowfields and 'Town'. Later on it widened to take in Gleadless and altho' eventually I came to know most areas of the City, as I inferred earlier, I can't remember any back to back houses.

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