My Views of Sheffield Buildings - No.1

No 20 – 22 Cambridge Street – Leah’s Yard.

When walking round Sheffield what people notice nowadays are all the new buildings seemingly appearing one every two weeks, what some fail to see are the places, that survive (maybe not for long) one such is Leah’s Yard.  The Yard itself to be redeveloped alongside the huge development earmarked for the area round it, the plans state that it will return to small units, work and shop areas.  The Yard is Grade II listed so major work has to match the existing architecture and is protected from demolition.

Leah’s Yard was built presumably around 1860 as the buildings round it have date stones of this time.  In the 1880’s it was the site of the Cambridge Horn Works, which supplied the cutlers in the area with the horn handles fashionable at that time.  1892 Henry Leah set up his Die Stamp Company on the site, producing stamps for the Silverware Industry here in Sheffield and elsewhere, this is where the Yard got the name we know it as.  The yard in 1905 was the home of 18 “Little Mesters”.  More recenty some of the units were taken over by small independent clothes and record shops.

Little Mesters

The origins of the term come from “Mester” the Sheffield dialect for master. So a “Little Mester” referred to a master craftsman working on a small scale.  Before the eighteenth century cutlery manufacture in Sheffield had been undertaken by master craftsmen who would make an item from start to finish. In the late 1700s there was a large increase in the call for more cutlery and tools that made it necessary for craftsman to focus on a single stage of the manufacture.  The larger Cutlery factories out sourced some of the work to self-employed craftsmen, the “Little Mesters”, each specializing in one step of production, such as forging, grinding or finishing.  Today, there are a handful of these craftsmen left in Sheffield, and the future for the continuation of their skills is looking uncertain.

Well that’s a bit about Leah’s Yard, as you can see from my photograph the sign that marks the currently unused site, had been kept over the years and whilst the buildings surrounding it have been redeveloped, Leah’s Yard is awaiting it’s makeover.