There has been an island close to the centre of Sheffield since the twelfth century when the town’s corn mill was built.  The goyt carrying water to this mill left the River Don below the present-day Ball Street Bridge and ran parallel to the river until it reached Lady’s Bridge, the main river crossing for traffic north into Yorkshire.  The land in between was known for centuries simply as “the Isle” or the Island”, and there’s a reference to the Isle as late as 1795. 

The upstream area of the island may have acquired its name from the town armourer in the seventeenth century, Kellam Homer, who operated the Kelham Wheel by 1637.

Fairbanks’ maps of 1771 and 1795 clearly show that the surrounding area was still agricultural in the late-eighteenth century – the Duke of Norfolk’s nurseries were located at the present-day Nursery Street – but the River Don’s usefulness to industry quickly changed the townscape.  Water- and steam-powered works, along with workers’ housing, filled the area in the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Not all these works were processing metal.  Another street-name, Cotton Mill Row, indicates a factory which was converted into a workhouse for six hundred inmates in 1829.  It was prone to overcrowding and repeatedly extended until it was replaced with the Firvale Workhouse (now part of the Northern General Hospital) in 1880.

The Sheffield Corporation Tramways Power Station was adjacent to the river and survives as the Kelham Island Museum, illustrating the industrial and social history of Sheffield.

Tucked away by the riverside, Kelham Island played a significant role in the city’s development, and its recent redevelopment as a desirable place to live, thrive and be entertained has drawn attention to its historic interest.

My colleague Anders Hanson gives walking tours of Kelham Island and the neighbouring area of Neepsend.  He’s a local resident and historian who knows its streets, buildings and gennels, with an engaging manner and a flair for a good story.

He links locations on his route with easily recognised personalities and aspects of Sheffield culture such as from the invention of Henderson’s Relish to the Arctic Monkeys and Lizzie the Elephant, as well as such upheavals as the Great Sheffield Flood (1864), the Blitz (1940) and a further flood in 2007.

Kelham Island has been dramatically redeveloped in the past twenty years.  It’s worth visiting.