Sheffield Shops That Are Now Extinct !!

[Norrie 10]

Hello Jessity

Thanks for putting me right re the book section of Andrews on Holly Lane. Throughout the early fifties I was flying high above the Far East with the RAF. I returned to a very strange England, I was out of touch with everything.

 

I can give almost chapter and verse though on the final closure of Andrews. From January of 1999. Elaine F. the manageress for 23years and her staff were telling customers they were leaving the Holly Lane building and moving to better premises in the city, but not yet able to say where. Andrews have a long history of outposts in Chesterfield, Rotherham and York. Holly Lane was founded in 1924, but had continued to move with the times under various owners. Originally they were suppliers of school books but when when buying was centralised, it moved into arts and graphics.(No clear date for this can be found).

 

But now, standing alone and in the ownership of Eagle Press of Wakefield and Doncaster, these owners had decided to sell the whole block(which went round into West Street, and included with Andrews was a hairdressers and a second hand furniture business), to another company, the whole block being intended for use as a coffee bar. Eagle had promised Andrew's staff new premises elsewhere.

 

On Monday 17th March 1999, Elaine F and the staff arrived for work only to be told that the business was closing down completely and they were all to lose their jobs which left them all stunned. A sale of art materials had been in progress for sometime with 25% discount on most products in anticipation of a massive relocation of stock.

 

Andrews didn't have too much on the way of competition. The main ones Pinder's being the closest but slightly more expensive (at least in my experience). Hibbert's, an old family art business on Surrey Street was contemplating closing anyway, and the new craft shop Hobbycraft was out of reach for many at the far end of Attercliffe.

 

At this time, I was in the process of retiring from Sheffield Newspapers and on learning the astonishing news, I alerted Martin Dawes, a well known feature writer to pay this iconic Sheffield business a visit with a photographer which he did and provided a masterwork of analysis in describing the situation with pictures in an almost full page of the Star on Monday March 22, 1999.

 

I can categorically say that Amazon had no influence in this and no such poster or notice had been displayed by the girls implying such. At that time Amazon were still in their infancy, having started up only five years previously in the USA in July, 1994 as an online book-store, later DVD Blue Ray, MP3 and minor electronics and at that time wouldn't have been a threat with artists materials even if they'd started selling them, which I'm sure they weren't.

 

During this sad period of the Andrew's demise, I spent a lot of time on the premises with the staff, whom I knew very well, during which time such people as Pinders were to-ing and fro-ing carting art supplies away -easels etc - by arrangement with Eagle. The girls had been fully expecting to carry on trading in another place, seeing the move as an improvement to Andrew's and their own circumstances; but certainly not displaced by Amazon's low cost deals.

 

The staff were both extrenely sad and depressed and at the same time very angry at being lied to by, and virtually stabbed in the back by, Eagle Press, who had obviously decided that the moneys from the sale of the whole block could be used for another purpose that suited them.

 

This is all well documented in Martin Dawes piece in the Sheffield Star as mentioned above.

[bantycock 10]

Oldfield's ice cream originally from Grimesthorpe moved to Bellhouse road gone now !!

[Kidorry 189]

Waterfalls,the grocery shop in the Wicker.

[scousemouse 10]

Not in town I know,but does anyone rememeber ahop on Chesterfield Road called Derek Ashmore! He sold and repaired babies prams. I had a coach built Marmet pram, and he serviced it for my second baby. (who is now 46!)

[Norrie 10]

Yes Scousemouse; Did our shopping along there. Derek Ashmore (in the 600's on Chesterfield Road) was between Thompson's Newsagents and Chantrey Snacks, near Mr A. Clack the decorators stores and just before Fine Fare (what became of them, Part of Argyll Foods). If I remember rightly, there were about ten butchers shops on Woodseats, every kind of meat - Boldocks eventually, the poulterers (stil there).

[soft ayperth 11]

Hard for me to comment accurately from this side of the pond as I'd really need to be there to see what is no longer there if you see what I mean. But, I'll give you my general impression as I do visit every few years. The downtown area is now very poorly served with decent stores. Cockayne's, Walsh's, Robert Bros have given way to Poundlands and other discount stores. In the neighborhoods, the corner stores, "off licences," are hard to find. I guess they call this progress?

[TORONTONY 10]

Hard for me to comment accurately from this side of the pond as I'd really need to be there to see what is no longer there if you see what I mean. But, I'll give you my general impression as I do visit every few years. The downtown area is now very poorly served with decent stores. Cockayne's, Walsh's, Robert Bros have given way to Poundlands and other discount stores. In the neighborhoods, the corner stores, "off licences," are hard to find. I guess they call this progress?

 

Google Fitzalan Square, 3 betting shops and no pubs lol

[Guest]

Hello Jessity

Thanks for putting me right re the book section of Andrews on Holly Lane. Throughout the early fifties I was flying high above the Far East with the RAF. I returned to a very strange England, I was out of touch with everything.

 

I can give almost chapter and verse though on the final closure of Andrews. ...

[snipped for space]

 

Thankyou, Norrie. That was very interesting. Such a sad end for an excellent shop.

 

***

 

The recent update to Google Maps has enabled me to wander around Haymarket again. What a sorry state that area's in, and Fitzalan Square too. Almost nothing left from my time in Sheffield, names established in that location in the 1930s, and still trading in the 90s, gone with only a record in Picture Sheffield to say that they were ever there at all. Not to mention an ugly and very sad proliferation of betting shops, charity shops and cash converters, plus a Poundland on the site of one of Sheffield's former quality department stores.

 

Another ten years of the universities' thirst for rapid and intrusive expansion and the city centre will be one huge campus.

[kaleidoscope 10]

A department store I believe no-one has mentioned so far was Proctors on Fargate. It was next to the old Cole Brothers store.

 

I believe there was also a jewellery store called Ciro, probably also on Fargate. It sprang up later in Cockaynes, which later became Schofields.

[firesmudge 10]

Revolution records near castle market

[fatrajah 10]

Going back to the late 1950s, does anybody remember the bike shop on the Moor? It was near the bottom of the Moor on the right-hand side looking in the diection of the Town Hall.

[Avit 10]

What was the name of the guy with the little shop on Cambridge St, that used to sell the leather jackets and patches etc?

Pippys hth