“There’s a lot of confidence in Sheffield these days,” says James O’Hara, one of the city’s leading cultural promoters. “It feels like we’re on the cusp of a new era.” The Guardian’s journalism is independent.
We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. It’s a refrain you hear a lot in Sheffield today.
Sprawled across five valleys in the foothills of the Peak District, this former steelmaking world capital, and birthplace of Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Human League and Warp Records, has long been a cultural heavy hitter. Yet as key city centre developments such as the vast new Cambridge Street Collective food hall open their doors, a rejuvenated urban landscape is emerging. Green corridors and innovative parks wind their way round reclaimed brutalist buildings; fluid sculptures echo the city’s wiggly contoured topography and the flow of its rivers.
There are areas of the city yet to be reached, but Sheffield’s vision for its post-industrial afterlife proudly leans into what makes the city distinctive. View image in fullscreen The Park Hill housing estate, which features in Sheffield-made musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge. Photograph: Daniel Allen/Alamy The once reviled, now renovated Park Hill housing estate stars in the Sheffield-made musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge , currently being staged in London’s West End.
The neglected former industrial heartland of Kelham Island – which prompted George Orwell to .