Walking tour of Park Hill Sheffield
At some point back in May, I realised you could book a walking tour of the Park Hill flats in Sheffield, and I knew I had to take advantage of the opportunity.
Since college, I’ve been interested in modernist architecture and its story: from being shocking, to being celebrated and then utilised by local governments in the 1960s as a way of providing public housing and rejuvenating inner cities. By the 1980s, however, the story had changed. Modernist architecture was increasingly seen as a failure, blamed for ugly buildings, anti-social behaviour and the breakdown of neighbourhoods, that led to an era of demolition.
Park Hill is symbolic of this story, but it also represents the beginning of something new. From the early 2000s, there was a growing reassessment of modernist and brutalist architecture, with people beginning to campaign for the preservation of buildings that had previously been considered eyesores. Park Hill benefited from this changing attitude. In 2007, Urban Splash invested in the abandoned estate with a plan to bring it back to life.
The walking tour is organised by the Park Hill Residents’ Association, with the guides themselves being residents. Lasting around 90 minutes, the tour takes you through the famous ‘streets in the sky’, including a visit to one of the flats, while exploring the history of the area and the story of its architects, Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith. It also brings the human side of Park Hill to life, with stories about the people who lived there in the past and those who call it home today.
If you can get to Sheffield, I’d strongly recommend booking the tour. And afterwards, grab some food at the lovely South Street Kitchen, which sits on the ground floor of the flats.
