NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 12! 7 OCT 2017

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FRIENDS OF THE OLD TOWN HALL

AUTUMN OPEN MEETING: OUR LANDMARK BUILDING

Our Autumn Open Meeting will be at the Friends’ Meeting House, St James’s Street (near the Cathedral) at 7.15 pm on Monday 23 October. We have two items on the agenda.First there will be a short talk by Kim Miller, geographer, town planner and architectural history student, on "The Rise and Decline of a Landmark Building: findings of a postgraduate dissertation on the Old Town Hall." Following that will be a detailed update from committee members on the work that has been going on in recent months, funded by the two grants we received from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Architectural Heritage Fund. The project has given us a much better understanding of the potential costs of restoring the Old Town Hall, and of how it could be brought progressively back into use. We should be close to a position where we can start seeking major funding. There will also be an update on what’s been happening in Castlegate generally. Do come along; we are on the cusp, we think, of some real action!

For example, the committee has been working hard over the summer on the two projects funded by HLF and AHF. Working with consultants Integreat, whose appointment was announced in Newsletter 11, we’ve been developing a business plan and funding strategy to take forward our aim of acquiring and regenerating the Old Town Hall. Our proposed model for new uses has been put through a tough test, and it looks like it will be declared financially sustainable. Specialist advisers (conservation architects and surveyors) have taken a hard look at the building inside and out and we’re awaiting the fine detail of their estimates of the cost of restoring the building. Yes the numbers will be eye-watering but we knew that from the start! Final versions of the paperwork are imminent and all being well we will have made the progress we wanted towards being able to seek serious grant funding. More at the Open Meeting on 23 October. Also for your diaries is our next litterpick is on Saturday 4 November; full details later in this newsletter

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OLD TOWN HALL

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OLD TOWN HALL

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WHATS HAPPENING IN CASTLEGATE? Rumour has it that a couple of private hotel interests have been sniffing around the OTH, but apparently without result.........we’ve always understood that there could be a private sale at any time, but the curious progression of the sale price – going up the longer there’s been no sale – doesn’t suggest this is very likely. Now we see that the online sale advert has had the price removed altogether! A signal of a more realistic approach by the owners? – don’t bet on it. And until it becomes clear that someone else has bought it, we’ll keep on with our plans.

KICKSTART CASTLEGATE In July the City Council announced its long-awaited Kickstart Castlegate programme, aimed at starting to bring new life back into this neglected place. The signal that the Council is now serious about regenerating Castlegate is overdue, and welcome. Of course the economic context is not hugely favourable but if all goes well fresh investment should be attracted in. The Council and the Castlegate Partnership Steering Group (on which FOTH is represented) have developed a vision for the area as home to digital and creative business, and as a link between the city centre and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District round the Parkway, which has already gained international recognition for the quality of the leading-edge engineering work going on there. That said, the Council is having to make a relatively limited resource go a long way. The largest item is, rightly, the £200k for archaeological work on the site of Sheffield Castle. This is critical, as nothing else can happen to the site until we know for sure what is, or isn’t, underneath it. The work starts in January and the contractor will be expected to provide for community access and involvement, which will bring welcome footfall to Castlegate.

GREY TO GREENThere’s cash for design work on the next stage of the prizewinning Grey To Green project – if you haven’t seen what’s been done so far, do take a look; West Bar has been transformed. This new stage will refashion Exchange Street and Castlegate the street. We hope in time that Waingate will get the same treatment.

EXCHANGE STREETThere is funding to encourage use of the empty Exchange Street shops and then for 2 items of critical significance for us. First the Council aims to establish a Castlegate Conservation Area; this will bring extra protection to the heritage townscape and support funding bids. Second there is a sum for urgent work to make the Old Town Hall weatherproof. We’ve been pressing for this since we began. Let’s not get carried away; it will fund only very basic work and informal messages suggest that getting the work done will be a slow process. But a Friend asked about timing at the last full Council meeting and was told it would be done before the winter. We’ll be holding the Council to account on that one.

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CHARTIST REBELLION IN SHEFFIELDThe Old Town Hall saw action, so to speak, during the Chartist uprising of 1839-40. Joy Bullivant draws together the newspaper accounts of the time, notably from the Northern Star - a Chartist newspaper.... 

On Saturday 11th January 1840 in the evening night half the dragoons from the Barracks were stationed across the road from the Town Hall at the Tontine Inn (on the corner of Dixon Lane), while a party of Infantry was stationed within the Town Hall. The police

and watchmen went out on their usual rounds. During the whole of the Sunday there was great excitement round the Town Hall where a company of First Dragoons were on duty and at five o'clock the Yeomanry were called out and continued to patrol the Haymarket and area for the whole of Sunday night. News came that several arrests had been made. On the Monday the magistrates sat in the Sessions Room to examine the prisoners. The table of the Court was literally covered with pikes, daggers, fire-arms, combustibles, and other destructive materials. In the dock were 6 prisoners: Samuel Holberry, "a very tall, well formed, muscular young man, with much of the appearance and manner of an itinerant showman", Mary Holberry, his wife, Thomas Booker, William Booker his son, Samuel Foxall, and Samuel Thompson. After examination charges were dropped against Mrs Holberry, Samuel Foxall and Samuel Thompson. The remainder were committed for trial to York. 

Right: A bust of Samuel Holberry - sculpted soon after his death (artist unknown)

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CHARTIST REBELLION IN SHEFFIELD (continued)

From the Northern Star of 18th January 1840: "You are committed on the charge of High Treason: the depositions will be sent to the law officers of the Crown, and it will be for them to adopt them, or take such other proceedings as they think proper. I can only add that as soon as you are removed from the bar, you will be conveyed to York Castle. We cannot suffer the present excitement to be kept up, or the safety of the town endangered by your remaining here longer than has been necessary for your examination. Your schemes were of a most diabolical kind; the first act was to have been at this place at two o'clock, then an attack was to have been made on this building, then on the Tontine, and the town was to have been fired in several places. Men were also engaged to fire the Barracks, after that Mr. Albert Smith's house, and then the houses of the magistrates around. The watchmen and police were to have been assassinated; and cats thrown in the streets to obstruct the cavalry, and shops attacked which contained arms. This was the means you intended to go on with your conspiracy in that general and public way; and there can be no doubt, in any person's mind, that the offence contemplated was high treason. The scheme was really too dreadful, too awful, to be contemplated. Thank God, by the interposition of his Divine Providence, the town has been saved, which would not have been had not their designs been happily forestalled."  At the end of the committal the authorities grew nervous and it was decided to bring in a small military presence into the lobby of the court, so twenty-five dragoons and an officer with drawn sabres entered the room on the removal of the prisoners.  The prisoners were removed from the Town Hall, at twenty minutes past four, and conveyed to York in a chaise and four, accompanied by Mr. Bland, constable, and escorted by a troop of the Royal Dragoons. 

Left: an illustration of the confrontation between dragoons and Chartists at Preston, Lancashire

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Pick It Up!

Show some Love for Historic

Castlegate

With Kind Support From

www.sheffieldoldtownhall.co.uk

Castlegate Litter Pick

www.facebook.com/OTHSheffield

www.twitter.com/SaveOTH

Saturday 4th November10am – 1pm

Gloves, Pickers, Hi-Vis Vests & Bags Provided

Organised byThe Friends of the Old

Town Hall

Meet Outside Café Roma on Castle Street

For More Info Contact Brian on 07845265547

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How to contact us

We are on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/OTHSheffield – and have a blog at https://friendsofothsheffield.wordpress.com/ We have a video, now with over a 1000 Youtube views and shot by Juun Loh of Sheffield University’s Department of Journalism Studies. View it on the Locality website at http://locality.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/cado/town-hall/ We now have our own website: https://sheffieldoldtownhall.co.uk Finally you can always email us at: fothsheffield@gmail.com

Contributors

VALERIE BAYLISSValerie Bayliss is a former civil servant and consultant with a long-standing interest in Sheffield's historic buildings.

BRIAN HOLMSHAWBrian chaired the Making History for a Successful City conference (part of Year of Making 2016) and

designs this newsletter. In any spare time he runs his own heritage interpretation consultancy - sheafvalleyheritage.co.uk 

JOY BULLIVANT Joy Bullivant, MA. joint secretary of FOTH is a local historian and co- ordinator for the

Sheffield based Timewalk project.

CHARD REMAINSThanks to Chard for the page 1 photograph of the Old Town Hall.

IDEAS BAZAAR AND WATERFRONT FESTIVAL

We didn’t, sadly, manage to run a stall at the Heritage Fair last month, but we did have a presence at two other events. The Ideas Bazaar at Sheffield University is a forum for mixing people up and generating ideas, some of which may feed through into the Festival of the Mind which will happen again in 2018. And yes, we had an idea........We also had a stall at the Waterfront Festival in Victoria Quays. Lots of people came to look at our display and talk to us, we signed up 35 new supporters and found a welcome amount in the donations box at the end of the day. Thanks to all who came along.