Sheffield Moor was, many moons ago, a chunk of moorland south of the city.
In the mid eighteenth century Sheffield ended at what is now Barkers Pool and Pinstone Street.
"The Moor" developed as a major shopping centre with the Crimea Monument as a focus.
Our "story" today focuses on a favourite toy store ...
... beloved by the children of more well-blessed Sheffield folk.
1857 - E Redgate is opened by Edwin Redgate in Fargate. It sells sewing machines and furs.
1890 - Cheap fur which won’t sell is used to make pram covers. Prams are sold for the first time to go with the covers. Wheeled toys are also brought in.
1895 - William S Nunn marries Edwin’s daughter, Annie Gertrude, and later becomes a partner in the business.
1918 - George Nunn, son of William and Annie Gertrude brings more toys to the business after visiting Manchester Toy Fair.
1925 - The store moves to Moorhead for the first of two stays there.
1940 - The store is badly damaged during the Sheffield Blitz and relocates to Ecclesall Road.
1948 - Michael Nunn, the last member of the Redgate family to run the business, joins at just 20 years of age.
1954 - Moves back to Moorhead
1967 - fbb teaches English to Anthony Redgate Nunn (aged 13) at Birkdale Prep School
1974 - Mrs fbb's mother buys pram for fbb's No1 son from Redgates for £54 (navy blue Silver Cross)
Of course the whole area was devastated by a certain Mr Hitler; bad for the shops but good for the steelworks. Aiming for the works, the bombers slightly lost their way and destroyed much of the city centre.
So the Moor was rebuilt some of it as late as the mid 1960s.
Furnival Gate replaced the traditional Moorhead layout and there (above) in the gap went Redgates shop.
Later The Moor was closed to all traffic and over the years more and more restrictions have been added to the "by-pass" roads.
Approach from the city centre and you now have to turn left ...
... go past the old Redgates ...
... U-turn at the roundabout ...
... and back past the old Redgates to get to the busy bus stops round the back of The Moor.
So where is this all leading?
On Sunday Morning, Roy, our Sheffield correspondent, was waiting at the bottom of the Moor for a bus out of town.
And came there none.
Clever Roy was able to access the Travel South Yorkshire web site and found this ...
... posted at 1146.
Roy, justifiably annoyed, rang the PTE enquiry number and asked why nothing was posted at bus stops.
"We were only told this morning." came the reply, "the road past Redgates is closed because of the demolition." (see above).
Only told this morning? VERY unlikely.
Roy then asked why there were no notices at the stops.
"Nobody has access to a printer on a Sunday."
Has nobody heard of sheets of paper and a thick felt tip pen?
Without any notice most passengers were completely befuddled. In fact, buses ran via Eyre Street ...
... as per the PTE's on-line notice.
But how many would have bothered to look, even if they had access to a smartphone? And if they looked, would they have found it. "Disruptions" notices are well hidden.
Back in the day a nice Sheffield Transport Inspector would be dispatched to each of the unserved stops to direct people to the diverted buses. Why could staff not be found to do the same last Sunday?
Instead a huge number of people were frustrated, inconvenienced and almost certainly missed their bus. The chaos applied right until the end of service on Sunday.
But it was all on line!!!
Yet again, companies wonder why passengers are abandoning the buses.
And Four Come Along At Once (2) is postponed due to "technical difficulties"
Next Demand Responsive blog : Wednesday 23rd May
Enjoyed the history of Redgates, and agree it was poor that there was no notice of the diversion on Sunday - but I think TSY weren't (unusually) to blame for this. There really was no warning of the road closure. One thing TSY are quite good at, surprisingly, is posting prominent yellow notices at stops to warn of changes to routes etc caused by roadworks - but I doubt they would have the staff available to do this at short notice on a Sunday. One thing that is inexcusable however is that the real time running information available online and at some stops is completely ignorant of diversions etc, so will continue to show services due as if there was no alteration to the timetable.
ReplyDeleteHere in Cardiff we have a rather old "real-time" system. I have been told that a man (or even a woman!) has to visit every stop before a timetable change to reprogram them. Certainly they show normal weekday times on Bank Holidays!
DeleteOnes in Lancaster still don't work on Sundays, let along bank holidays. At least the say out to refer to a paper timetable rather then being incorrect though.
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