Castles In The Square (3)

The junction of Market Place/Angel Street was always a T junction (but with a graceful curve) in the good old days.

It remained so right up to the late 1960s. When fbb arrived in 1963 to give the benefit of his agile brain to Sheffield University (?) it was geographically unchanged from the 1880 plan above.

The Sheffield Blitz had, however, changed the buildings that surrounded the junction.

So fbb only knew the new.

Just peeping into the shot on the left is (a) a Sheffield Transport bus in slightly overdone "cream" with blue stripes and (b) the Midland Bank, now Wetherspoons, which actually survived the blitz on that corner.

There it is, pre WW2, behind the tram on its way down Angel Street with Burtons/C & A on the right and Marples on the left.

On the left (NW corner, we now looking down Angel Street) the old Cockaynes, a family department store ...

... was rebuilt and opened in 1955 ...

... followed later by a new lavishly luxurious ABC cinema next door.

On the NE corner, the fire ravaged Burtons .,..

... became an extended "Coats and 'Ats".

The SE corner was graced by offices and smaller shops attached to the rebuilt Marples hotel.

The buses far left (outside C & A) would have been ready to take fbb back to his digs on Barnsley Road after a busy (?) day studying at the Uni.

The NE corner was altogether more mysterious. Walsh's store on High Street was utterly destroyed in the blitz.

We are now look west along High Street ...

... and the big block of the rebuilt Walsh's department store is obvious. Bur tacked on are some very odd and unlovely single storey shops - and that wall above looks decidedly unfinished.

That's because it was unfinished!

The little road lower left is Change Alley and a peer along there found some very unattractive city centre premises.

It wasn't long after fbb started working as a teacher that the view south from the T junction began to change dramatically and one of the features of the new layout began to make sense.

The property on both sides of Change Alley has gone and a blast of demolition was preparing for the new road, the first part of the centre ring road as planned in 1945. It had taken over 25 years!

Walshs was finally finished with a new angled entrance and colonnade along the new Arundel Gate matching that on High Street.

The name on this modern picture of the Arundel Gate frontage (Poundland) reminds fbb that, apart from Marples pub, none of the companies mentioned in this blog still trade on the sites illustrated; most of them don't trade at all! But back in the late 60s this was the supreme heart of Sheffield's quality retail sector.

In the centre of the square, as defined by the angled corners on three sides and the Midland Bank on the fourth, would emerge the celebrated "Hole in the Road".

In the week that it opened, fbb hand drew a Gestetner stencil showing all the entrances/exits with escalators, steps or ramps with entrances underground to many of the stores and used it to teach his 13 year olds the skills of giving directions, verbal and written.

As a result of these lessons, many of the class took their parent(s) into Castle Square to explore!

Tomorrow we follow the beginning, middle and end of the round Square.

Trees, A Poem

I think that I shall never see

A model as costly as a tree.

A tree whose plastic roots are prest

Against the baseboard's flowing breast;

A tree that looks real good all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

Most model trees will make you weep

Unrealistically cheap

But of size that's nearer scale

The cost is well beyond the pale

Cheap trees are used by fbb

But Hornby sells a better tree.

Most trees planted on a model railwasy are crudely modelled and far too small. fbb's pine trees that surround Peterville Castle fulfill those criteria - nasty and small, but cheap. fbb pays about 50p per tree, often pre-owned when they appear on-line.

Real trees are big compared with a puny train - and there is an almost infinite variety of colours, shapes and sizes.

So, if you want realistic trees on your layout, be prepared to spend up to £10 fot just one tree!

If you are satisfied with a general arborial impression, buy a bag of 20 for £10.

 Next Castles blog : Thursday 7th May