Britannia Inn, Worksop Road, Attercliffe Sheffield (2010)

I’ve led A Walk Round Attercliffe every year since 2017, only missing 2020 because of the pandemic lockdown.

These walks are part of the Heritage Open Days event programme and take place on a September weekday, usually Friday, including visits to St Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church, the former Sheffield & Hallamshire Bank (now a running shop) and the Zion Graveyard.

As a result, each year there’s a substantial waiting-list.  For health-and-safety reasons these walks are limited to 25 participants, and in 2025 I had a waiting list of fifty disappointed people.  I run only one Heritage Open Days Walk Round Attercliffe a year because I need to maintain goodwill with the sites that open up for us specially.

It’s become obvious that I should devise a version of the walk suitable for Sunday afternoons, and because the church and the running shop are unavailable, I include a visit to the Zion Graveyard and a comfort stop, with hot and cold drinks and cake available, at the Don Valley Hotel, formerly the Coach & Horses pub, opened in 1901.

The pilot Sunday-afternoon Walk Round Attercliffe was fully booked and took place on April 26th 2026.  There was yet another waiting list, so I’ve arranged a follow-up tour on Sunday June 7th 2026, starting at 2.00pm at the Attercliffe tram stop.  Wheelchair users are very welcome to join. There’s an accessible entrance to the Zion Graveyard.

I grew up in Attercliffe in the 1950s, and I understand why there’s such a level of interest in the memory of the grimy community that surrounded the steel works.  There are plenty of people still alive who were brought up in the terraced houses and went to the huge Victorian board schools, and the following generations who’ve heard the ancestral stories are curious to understand the profound changes that continue to take place.

The Lower Don Valley was the powerhouse of Sheffield’s heavy steel industry and Attercliffe was where its workers lived.  Though many buildings have disappeared what remains is a fascinating insight into the life of a once-thriving community, and there are countless stories located in the Valley, from the inventor Benjamin Huntsman to the comedian Charlie Williams.

If you’d like to join a Walk Round Attercliffe, please book at A Walk Round Attercliffe Tickets, Sunday, June 7  •  2 PM – 4:30 PM | Eventbrite.