Timelord's Arcane Relic Discovered In Sheffield

Generations of Sheffielder's have fallen in love with the police box next to the town hall. It's not blue, it's not the 'right' shape and it lost its blue light years ago, but Who cares? We can still fantasize about travelling across time and space in it.

Personally, I'd go back to the 1930s, just to find out whether people really did walk as quickly as they do in old news reels. Where would you go?

"This Police Box, which is still used operationally, is the sole survivor of 120 boxes which served the Sheffield City Police and the community for nearly 40 years.

Introduced by the Chief Constable, Percy J Sillitoe, in October 1928, in the days when there were few police vehicles and no personal radios, the boxes were sited on police beats all over the City and provided a contact point for police officers and members of the public. Each box had a direct telephone link with the local police station which was freely available to members of the public seeking police assistance.

The boxes were visited by patrolling officers at hourly intervals when information was passed by 'phone between patrolling officers and supervisory staff at police stations.

A 'blue' electric lamp, controlled from the local police station, was located on the top of each box and used to indicate that there was an important message to be passed out.

Although small in size (about 5 feet square) the boxes were used by one, and often two, patrolling officers for meal-breaks - usually sandwiches and a flask of tea - and for report writing and recording messages for other patrolling and supervisory officers.

Occasionally the boxes served as a temporary lock-up for anyone who had been arrested and was awaiting transport to a police station.

The boxes remained in regular use until the 1960's [sic] when modern policing techniques and improved communications made them obsolete."

From the information board fixed to the box.

Except this one isn't obsolete, apart from being our local TARDIS that we all love, it is still in use. If you feel like shattering your childhood illusions, there are photos showing inside the box on this thread of the Sheffield History Forum - but there is a catch, you will have to register with the forum to see the pictures :-(

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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Phlegmatic

Our new section of relief road is proving fairly popular with drivers, but it has created a real challenge for the RSPCA in Sheffield, who were forced to close their animal shelter when the road was built. Fund raising for a new centre is underway in the form of Monty's Appeal, but in the meantime facilities in Sheffield are restricted.

At present a small building close to the original site is being used for kennels. This was a spectacularly ugly building until last summer, when it received the Phlegm treatment.

I pass it twice a day but I can't really get more than a fleeting glimpse when I'm travelling past, so we decided to go and take a closer look at the weekend.

The artwork is great, but Mr TLC had to drag me away - the sound of all those dogs howling was heart rending, but that may have been partly because it was breakfast time.

Links- updated
Meet Phlegm - he introduces himself to the readers of fatcap, a graffiti blog
Phlegm's blog
Phlegm's official art site includes some great photos

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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In Black and White

Where has this sudden obsession with graffiti come from? This one's the last (at least it's the last for now). Or is it? Time will tell...

Anyway this is at the end of Division Street in Sheffield, near the controversial graffiti competion site. I haven't managed to discover who painted it yet, but I rather like it. What do you think?

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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Sheffield Blues

Woke up this morning,
Put on my shoes,
Strolled into Sheffield,
Saw the Constipation Blues

I spotted this painted on the side of the former Fopp shop on Division Street at the weekend. Perhaps the artist should consider eating more fruit.

There was an assembly all about graffiti and criminal damage at school today, I kept thinking about this particular example and had to stop myself from smiling. It's a serious business you know, this graffiti. Mind you, so is having the constipation blues.

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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Blue Bird

There is a beautiful flock of blue birds flying up through the stairwell leading to Sheffield's Graves Art Gallery.

Textile artist (and origami expert) Seiko Kinoshita has created a beautiful sculpture from paper yarn with some other mixed media. The sculpture, called Blue Bird, stretches from the skylight on the top floor to the ceiling level on the ground floor and links the Central Library and the Graves Art Gallery, which share this four storey building in Sheffield.

It is beautiful. Close up, each individual "bird" is simply a twisted piece of fabric made from woven strands of paper yarn, suspended on fine threads so that they bob and spin gently as the air moves. Individually, the "birds" look quite pretty, but viewed en masse they look absolutely stunning.

The first view of the sculpture is from below, standing in the entrance to the library you can look up at the flock of birds which seem to be fluttering up towards the skylight. The piece is big, but looks even bigger thanks to the clever way that the colours change from a dark cobalt/indigo shade of blue at the bottom, through sky blue in the centre, to a very pale turquoise at the top.

"The top skylight gave me the idea of birds flying. Also the library inspired me to think about The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck and I imagined blue birds flying up the staircase to the skylight"

Seiko Kinoshita

The view of this sculpture changes dramatically as you climb the stairs: first you look in on the flock of birds, which gradually change colour as you climb higher and higher. From the top floor, at the entrance to the gallery, the flock of birds stretches dramatically down to the foyer below.

Seiko was commissioned to make this piece, her largest to date, for this space by the Sheffield Galleries and Museum Trust.

While I was there, people of all ages stopped to look at the sculpture on their way into the libraries or the Graves Art Gallery. Younger children in particular were absolutely entranced by it. It certainly encourages people to come in to the gallery and admire the view.

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/

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Winter Garden

The Winter Garden may be one of Sheffield's newer buildings, but it is certainly one the best loved.

When the plans for a giant greenhouse in the heart of the city were first published, they didn't create much of a stir, possibly because the local population were still suffering from development fatigue after the less than joyous experiences of building for the Student Games and then the Supertram. Of course, once the incredibly beautiful arched structure started to take shape, everyone simply fell in love with it. People stopped to stare as the giant wooden skeleton was gradually transformed into a stunning building.

Since then the Winter Garden has been planted, has matured and has become a much loved part of the city centre. The finished building is around 70 metres long and 22 metres high and holds around 2500 plants. It's a place to walk through, to sit and watch the world go by, to visit temporary exhibitions, to enjoy a cup of coffee or even (if you are really lucky) to attend an exclusive event with a select few. Despite the name, the building is open for 364 days a year and is popular all year round. A Winter Garden is for life, but not for Christmas.

The Winter Garden is now officially five years old. Many Happy Returns!

Links:
Take a 360 degree tour of the Winter Garden, inside and out

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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Continental Sheffield

An excellent surprise today, a routine trip to collect my new glasses turned into a mega shopping trip - the Continental Market was in town! (Well the Queen did tell us Sheffield was now closer to Paris when she opened St Pancras this week - I didn't realise how close!).

There were cheese stalls, bakers, creperies, traders selling hats and scarves, Morecambe Bay shrimps(!), sweets, gingerbread houses, German sausages, flowers, plants, Christmas trees (bit early!), olives, dried fruit, piles of garlic, fruit and vegetables, leather goods and a grumpy Yorkshireman complaining "They're tekin some reet money" every time his wife looked at anything. Fortunately for me, Mr TLC is not a grumpy Yorkshireman at times like these - he is much too busy buying all the cheese in the world. However the grumpy Yorkshireman is right - it is fairly pricey on the food stalls, but on the other hand the food is fantastic - and I can kid myself that I've been to one of those marvellous French markets without the expense of a ferry/train to France!

I got the chance to practise my awful French, although this did backfire when the very nice guy on one French bakery's stall failed to understand me before saying "I'm sorry I don't speak French". Which wasn't too surprising, because he was from Poland.

There were also buskers playing which added to the festive feel. I love this kind of shopping. The city centre is alive - the total opposite of the sanitised, chain store blandness of the out-of-town "shoppertunity" offered by Meadowhall (aka Meadowhell). The development and location of markets seems to be a contentious topic for our local council - I hope they take note of the popularity and success of the specialist markets on Fargate and reconsider relocating The Moor market there during the current redevolpment -after all the 'normal' and 'continental' markets operate on the same streets in Chesterfield without any major problems. Vive le marché!

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Originally published here on my main blog http://three-legged-cat.blogspot.com/
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