Housing for the metal trades in the industrial colony of Parkwood Springs, 1860-1970

Summary

This paper will explore housing for working-class metal workers in Sheffield. The focus of the paper will be the nineteenth-century industrial colony of Parkwood Springs in north Sheffield, in the United Kingdom. Residential housing was constructed on the Parkwood Springs site to house workers employed in metal trades. The neighbourhood was isolated, as access was limited to a road tunnel running under a railway bridge, and later a footbridge - the primary route for local school children to the nearby Council school. The residential area was demolished in the 1970s, along with the school, and concurrent with the decline of the metal trades in Sheffield, and was left overgrown until recent industrial development, which indicates that the former residential area will soon be transformed and repurposed. Employing a combination of standing building survey, GIS analysis, archival research, and oral testimony study, this paper seeks to reconstruct the material arrangement and social geography of Parkwood Springs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Workers’ Housing   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 182