BigKen

Brilliant link karl101, I love google earth to start with but with this patch on it it's fantastic. Pity you can't go into google street in way back when, of course that can't be but it would be magical - it'd be weeks before I came of the pc.

Sounds about right PopT, there was a lot of furnace slag and such like about and transport was not so cheap so it didn't get taken very far from it's source. Does anyone know exactly where this stuff would have been generated? Also does anyone know where any old crucibles can be picked up? I'd love a few for garden use, they used to be used for topping of garden walls and suchlike. I was born on Ashberry Rd. and our yard backed onto the gardens from Horam St. with a retaining wall about ten feet high or so and it was built of large irregular lumps of furnace slag, dark gray overall but bits were greenish or purple etc. and the texture was like cinder or coke mixed with glassy vitreous bits. Actually the wall collapsed some years after we left, probably mid to late 70s, I think it made the front page of the Star, a woman said she feared that her child might have been trapped beneath it as he'd just left for school when it came down. Does anyone else remember things being made from furnace slag or similar?

Docmel Not got a pm! It doesn't seem to be working - please email direct at [email protected] I remember something similar - walking to go past the iron door and watching it fearfully and with about twenty yards to go realising that it was about ten inches open, that was it, I cut across the corner of t'Tip and climbed up the embankment. I'm pretty sure the door is buried now under landscaping. Was there another entrance at the top of Oxford St. or that corner of t'Tip?

Spot on there lysander, I always understood that the embankment was the spoil from the townhall foundations which was tipped there to allow Winter St. to be connected to Barbour Rd. giving rise to the name the tip which was all that area of open ground before the houses started being demolished. However I suspect that much of the lower level of t'Tip had previously been a tip for industrial waste such as furnace slag (as someone mentioned, football was played on areas of gray ash - very unforgiving if you fell I remember) as I remember it t'Tip was loosely terraced, certainly not natural and perhaps this was why it wasn't built on. It seems strange that Bromley St. to Mushroom Lane was built up despite the challenging geography but t'Tip was never. Bit of a coincidence but when I was at Crookesmoor School ('65 to '70) I was told that the very soft clay material dumped on top of the rubble remains of Bromley St. to Mushroom Lane was from the foundations of the townhall extension (eggbox) Does anyone remember the dire warnings from school teachers about the dangers of venturing onto that clay and the terrible consequences for some kids who'd got stuck and had to be rescued by firemen using their ladders to crawl across to the sinking kids? As I remember over the next few evenings the clay became criss-crossed with paths of planks and bricks laid by defiant bravehearts. The Ponder was the "nicely grassed" area after Martin St., Wentworth St. etc. were demolished and ran from t'Tip down to the bottom of Upperthorpe Rd. Underneath t'Tip embankment was a large conduit containing pipes, cables and such used as an air raid shelter inWW2. It was rumoured amongst kids that some of the shelterers never came out and haunted the "catacombs" of passageways. Does anyone remember being scared of going near the "iron door" access way to the conduit which was at the top of Bromley St.?

Docmel tried sending pm - doesn't seem to work - please contact me at "[email protected]" cheers

Eyup docmel -I very distantly remember your dad working in the shop - he used to have lucky bags in a box behind the counter. Was there ever a fire in the shop? After it was demolished I saw some workmen digging a trench across the site and one of them was teasing me that he kept on finding handfulls of coppers from when the shop had a fire and the counter and cash drawer fell into the cellar. That was around 68 or69 and someone then backed up this tale saying it had suffered a fire sometime. I remember thinking what a great job it must be being a navvi. I'd still like to dig up all that area, but more as an archeologist. I think it was a hugely interesting and complex area, you just don't get modern areas developing anything like that complexity.

Eyup docmel -I very distantly remember your dad working in the shop - he used to have lucky bags in a box behind the counter. Was there ever a fire in the shop? After it was demolished I saw some workmen digging a trench across the site and one of them was teasing me that he kept on finding handfulls of coppers from when the shop had a fire and the counter and cash drawer fell into the cellar. That was around 68 or69 and someone then backed up this tale saying it had suffered a fire sometime. I remember thinking what a great job it must be being a navvi. I'd still like to dig up all that area, but more as an archeologist. I think it was a hugely interesting and complex area, you just don't get modern areas developing anything like that complexity.

Boyfriday You really took me back there - sitting on the grass between flower beds, back to Harcourt Rd, looking at the boats on the lake, glass bottle and waxed paper straw - sometimes it's the little details that hit the nostalgia bone. I do have vague memories of the cafe and the ice cream and lollies place, was it a cart that they wheeled out and stood in the shade at the end of the building? Where did you live? and what years?

Remember the steps clearly and there was something that looked like lift doors there - I've just accessed part of my memory that's been closed for years - am I imagining things or did Wiggys (Wigfalls) have a goods entrance on Bakers Hill? I "discovered" those steps about 1974 and regularly used them as a quick route between the market and Flat St for the 42 bus.

Alex, please tell me what a "five bob salad" is - is it a Sheffield phrase, I'm out of touch.

I went in Dallas a few times in 1980/81, I don't remember it being gay (there again I was a bit naive/not very sensitive to such things) it seemed very red blooded to me, a right flirting/pulling joint - very hands on, I got a gentle slap or two for things the guy I went with had done, but they were gorgeous girls to get slapped by - he did have good taste.

Yes - Sept'89 for first and looking like last time. I thought it was a great place, progressive Sheffield broke the mould from the seedy back street ROs that people only married in if they had to. It was a respectable place to get married without religion or stigma and looked like a wedding cake without being gaudy/glitzy. Great shame it went, where's the RO now? I'm a bit out of touch.