England Guide
Yorkshire
Sheffield
Yorkshire's second city, SHEFFIELD remains inextricably linked with its steel industry, in particular the production of high-quality cutlery. As one of Britain's foremost centres of heavy and specialist engineering, the city suffered heavy bombing in World War II and then, following the steel industry's downturn in the 1980s, dispiriting decline. The subsequent revival has been rapid, with the centre utterly transformed by flagship architectural projects, from gardens to galleries.
The main symbol of the city's regeneration is the stunning Winter Gardens, an arched steel-and-wood glasshouse almost 200 feet long and over 60 feet high. Clubs and galleries exist alongside arts and media businesses in the revamped Cultural Industries Quarter, while spruced-up warehouses and cobbled towpaths line the canal basin at Victoria Quays and the Devonshire Quarter rates as the trendiest shopping area.
Steel, of course, still underpins much of what Sheffield is about: museum collections tend to specialize in the region's industrial heritage, which is complemented by the startling science-and-adventure exhibits at Magna built on a disused steel works at nearby Rotherham, the former coal and iron town a few miles northeast of the city.