Kelvin, Hyde Park & Park Hill Flats

[TattyBear]

HI,

 

I have only lived in sheffield 3 years. I live near Hilsborough.

 

I have heard about Kelvin flats and my partner has tried to show me where they were. So today I searched for pics of them on internet. I found loads.

 

They looked, to me, exactly the same as park hill flats, the style and everything. They looked dirty and disgusting and made the landscape look horrendous. One picture was looking down a road at uppthorpe, a normal road with houses with bay windows, the street looked quite nice on the picture, but then stuck at the bottom were the horrible flats, weird!

 

My questions is: why did they just knock them down and not park hill?

The nearest I have ever been to park hill flats was the other day when I had to go to drakehouse and the tram went near the flats. It was at night and I was scared to death, non of the flats were lit up. does no-one live in them anymore?

[fox20thc]

Take a look at Petes Pics he has loads!

[bladesufc1]

Park Hill are a listed building! there getting a face lift soon

[Sheffielder]

There's some good recollections on sheffieldhistory.co.uk too

 

And isn't there a member on here who has the plaques off each landing (e.g. woollen walk) in their cellar ?

 

Would love to see those !

[TattyBear]

so do people still live in them then? were kelvin and park hill built at same time? what makes a building listed? i thought listed buildings were nice buildings..............

[mat1978]

I think they were listed beacause they are they the only example left of the 'City In the Skies' project.

[Plain Talker]

so do people still live in them then? were kelvin and park hill built at same time? what makes a building listed? i thought listed buildings were nice buildings..............

 

Park Hill were built first, in the very late fifties/ early sixties. Hyde Park and Kelvin were built a little later (early/ mid 60's).

 

PH was based on the work of the architect le corbusier who built a beautiful block of apartments in marseille (I thnk) called "Unite D'Habitation" (google it, it's fascinating to look at)

 

the basic layout of all three Sheffield blocks were pretty identical inside, it's just the window patterns that were different between PH and HP/K. in PH the windows were vertical, on HP/K they were set horizontally (think "portrait and "landscape", on a piece of paper)

 

All three had the Garchey waste disposal systems (which you can see an example of in the weston park museum) and district central heating schemes.

 

They were planned as these fantastic "streets in the sky". A far cry from the dark, mucky slums they were intended to replace. There was still a good community spirit that was fostered amongst the residents, when I lived there.

 

Unfortunately, "problem" tenants were moved onto the complexes, and this minority's anti-social actions contributed to the decline of the flats.

 

As it was the earliest example of this design of building, PH was given listed status. (a mixed blessing!) the others, (HP & K) were cleared and demolished. it's not necessarily the beauty of a building that casued it to get "listed" status, but "architectural interest" (it was a new and for the time unique method of design and consruction)

 

A member on here, (Pete FCS) has written an autobiographical partwork on here, which is a great read, about his experiences moving onto one of these inner-city bocks, he's up to about 10 or 12 chapters, by now. A lot of us eagerly await his next instalment (Pete!! are you listening!!?? )

 

If you do a search, there's a few threads on here about these flats, and members' reminiscences about life on those flats. again, an interesting read.

 

edit to add,

 

here's a linky to a pic of Unite d' habitation, look how much PH imitates the original

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Unite_d_Habitation.html

 

and here's another

http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/Unite_d_Habitation.html/cid_2464522.html

[Sheffielder]

Agreed

 

Pete's work on the flats is just superb

[TattyBear]

From searching it appears 'fairynormal' is the one with the plaque things in their cellar. would love to see pics of them. he/she also has loads of pics on their website which links to a photobucket account. her/his pictures are brilliant!

 

Trouble is keeping it as listed it looks a dump, irrelevant of what it stood for at the time. its awful now!

 

So do people still live there? if they do why was there not one room lit up the other night? unless the front isnt rooms?!

[RosyRat]

Trouble is keeping it as listed it looks a dump, irrelevant of what it stood for at the time. its awful now!

 

So do people still live there? if they do why was there not one room lit up the other night? unless the front isnt rooms?!

 

 

Yes TattyBear, people do live there and, contrary to what you might think, are proud of their community and their homes. I hope no Parkhill tenant is reading your comments - I think they'd be very offended. There is a thriving tenants' association and a good community spirit. Tenants voted to stay with the Council rather than for the stock transfer option. Once the Urban Splash regeneration has been completed, many of the tenants will be moving back in and they are looking forward to the refurbishment.