Wessex Archaeology at Hollis Croft

16th August 2017

The local economy seems to finally be on the rise with cranes dominating the Sheffield skyline.

This increase in construction has resulted in opportunities to explore Sheffield's industrial past, with large scale works at Hollis Croft coinciding with the Festival of British Archaeology. Wessex Archaeology has been working with Watkin Jones and Newmark Developments to clear the site on Hollis Croft prior to the construction of student accommodation. The site is depicted on 19th century OS maps of Sheffield as a large steel works, and amongst the remains of these works our team has discovered the bases of two significant circular cementation furnaces; used in the manufacture of blister steel. The site has also revealed the remains of back-to-back housing typical of 18th-century urban development in Sheffield and two public houses, the Cock and the Orange Branch. With little surviving of Sheffield's medieval past, the discovery of an Edward I long cross silver penny during the excavation of the former site of the Cock public house hints at a pre-industrial world long since lost in Sheffield. For much of the medieval period the Hollis Croft area was left open and known as Town Field before becoming an area of closes and crofts. Over the next two centuries 'The Crofts' became a centre for manufacture and trade, with the Footprint Works established at Hollis Croft in 1944. As part of this year's Festival of Archaeology, Wessex Archaeology hosted several tours of both Hollis Croft and the nearby crucible cellars of the former Titanic Works, Malinda Street/Hoyle Street. The former Titanic Works is a Grade II listed building and includes a nationally rare crucible furnace with two end stacks. With work underway at a former wire works on Summerfield Street and soon to commence at Sylvester Gardens, the site of the Porter Brook and a former grinders wheel, it looks to be a busy summer in Sheffield for development and Wessex Archaeology's team of 85 Sheffield based staff. For more news and updates, please see: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news