George Orwell In Sheffield

Following on from my previous posts on George Orwell’s stay in Sheffield’s Neepsend district, I thought it would be interesting to write a few words about modern Neepsend.

Orwell stayed with the Searle family at 154 Wallace Road. The road still exists, but would be unrecognisable to either Orwell, or indeed the Searles who, I believe, continued to live at 154 until it was demolished in the slum clearances of the 1960s and 70s. The image below is a view of Wallace Road today, taken from its junction with Douglas Road.

In common with many of Sheffield’s cleared slums, most of the roads remain, but now factory units usually occupy the spaces that previously housed whole communities. Wallace Road has fared badly in this respect. The factory units that replaced the demolished houses are themselves now in poor repair, and as can be seen in the photograph, the road has been allowed to deteriorate to the point where the light woodland of Parkwood Springs, just above Wallace Road, has started to encroach upon the road. In fact it is easy to imagine Wallace Road disappearing from view in not too many years.
At least the area does provide work for a few, as evidenced from the parked cars. And I was astonished to find that Wallace Road still has people living in it, though these are a few ‘Gypsies’ living in caravans concealed within the trees at the top end of the road. Their encampment is behind the gates in the image below. I was unable to take any photographs, as I could see that the residents were not exactly happy with the appearance of a stranger with a camera in their midst.
Interestingly, in the foreground is an area where the original cobbles have been revealed by the deteriorating tarmac, and with the adjacent original kerbstones, these are the only remnants of the community that once lived there. I estimate that the Searles house (no.154) would have been about forty or fifty metres beyond the metal gates, just about where the Gypsies are now camped.

As I walked back down the road to where my car was parked, one of the workers having a smoke outside his factory unit asked what I was doing. He was not at all unfriendly, and just seemed surprised to see someone showing an interest in the area. I told him that I was researching the history of Neepsend, at which he shook his head in apparent bewilderment. I suppose to a casual observer, Neepsend—especially Wallace Road—would be the least likely place of historical interest. As I continued walking, the thought occurred to me that the man’s bewilderment would probably have been exactly how Orwell would have been received by the residents of Wallace Road in 1936. Sheffield has always been renowned as a friendly city, and outsiders are almost always made welcome, despite not necessarily being understood. In fact Sheffield is distinct from most of Yorkshire in its easygoing attitude towards ‘strangers’, no matter how ‘barmy’ they may be perceived to be. Despite its clean, modern image, it is still a far from lovely city, but nevertheless, a place that is loved by its inhabitants. I presume the welcome provided to newcomers has much to do with the common pride that Sheffielders feel for their city.

The image to the right is taken from the hill opposite Shirecliffe Hill, and is the closest I could get to the aerial photographs in my earlier post. The single gasometer is the one remainder from the huge gasworks that blighted Neepsend until relatively recently. The trees above the gasometer conceal Wallace Road, and above the trees is Parkwood Springs and the Ski Village. It is hard to believe that this is the same general area that is shown in the 1930 aerial views, and is an indication of the extent of Sheffield’s recent de-industrialisation. A further indication of this is evident in the following photograph taken from the location of the Ski Village at Parkwood Springs. Again, Wallace Road is concealed by the trees in the right foreground, but the gasometer can clearly be seen in an area vastly different from that in the 1930 images. No longer is Neepsend Orwell’s stinking hell-hole dominated by the noxious gas works and factory chimneys, I wonder how he would describe it now?
© The above Image Copyright Martin Speck and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.