Sheffield

Contemporary Review, April, 2005

Sheffield. Ruth Harman and John Minnis with contributions by Roger Harper. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. xii 324 pages. ISBN 0-300-10585-1. This latest number of the Pevsner Architectural Guides traces its origins to Nikolaus Pevsner's 1966 description of the city in the second edition of his Yorkshire: The West Riding.

It is designed as a 'practical guide for exploring the buildings of Sheffield city centre and most of its surrounding suburbs' and is the first complete architectural guide to the city. Its text and illustrations make it an essential book for anyone interested in the city and its historic development. There is an historical introduction after which one finds a gazetteer that has small essays on seven major buildings: Sheffield Cathedral, the Catholic Cathedral of St Marie, the Town Hall, City Hall, Cutlers' Hall and Millennium Galleries and Winter Gardens. After this there are two sections devoted to Sheffield University and the new Sheffield Hallam University. After these the rest of the central part of the city is described along various walks and finally, the different suburban areas are described. Sheffield's buildings have got a 'bad press', which in the case of the hideous twentieth-century tower blocks is justified but, as this book shows, the city, England's fifth largest, has much of which to be proud.