Tramps home west bar

[old tup]

I could be wrong but didn,t what remained of the theatre cum music hall have a second hand car lot on it between the fire engine museum and another building opposite the old hostel.You could still see the faded decorated walls of the music hall,as kids in the 50s we called the hostel the "Mucky Mens Mansion" I can remember being on the tram to town with my mother and being fascinated by the tramps sat on the steps, as a 5yr old living isolated from built up areas I had never come across homeless people before!.

[denlin]

I could be wrong but didn,t what remained of the theatre cum music hall have a second hand car lot on it between the fire engine museum and another building opposite the old hostel.You could still see the faded decorated walls of the music hall,as kids in the 50s we called the hostel the "Mucky Mens Mansion" I can remember being on the tram to town with my mother and being fascinated by the tramps sat on the steps, as a 5yr old living isolated from built up areas I had never come across homeless people before!.

 

Not same place, there were two on there. The one that was P W Laceys was run by church for people who had retired but had nowhere to live. There was no such thing as housing benefit then I don't think but not sure because I wasn't born until 1951 and my dad always worked up to when he died when I was 16 and I was working by then.

[denlin]

Sorry but it was run as a private lodging house, did your grandfather go by the name of Manny?

 

It wasn't a private lodging house and was run by church I think you mean the doss house that was on there not the Lacey building. My Grandad was Joseph Henry and would not have been called Manny I don't think

[hillsbro]

From Pevsner's architectural guide to Sheffield:

 

"On the N. side of West Bar, the former Common Lodging House (now Mayfair Court), 1912, by John Reginald Truelove, whose father Alderman Truelove paid for the building. It provided hostel accommodation superior to the often insanitary lodgings of private landlords, together with public rooms and social facilities. One of the most interesting buildings of its period in the city. Tall and thin with a strikingly broad cornice, central balcony and accomplished detailing with rusticated brick quoins and contrasting red and yellow brick. The public rooms on the lower floors were lit by broad segmental-arched windows. Slit-like openings to the four floors of bedrooms above, which were divided by a corridor into two rows of cubicles."

 

The Kelly's directories I have from the period up to the mid-1950s confirm that the building was owned by the executors of A. Truelove. The entries read: "Hostel (The); Exors. of A. Truelove, proprs".

[Ghostrider]

HERE it is. There are other threads on the hostel (very interesting). Do a search.

Isnt that now the "7 spice" restaurant ?

[Vaati]

Isnt that now the "7 spice" restaurant ?

 

Yup it is (at least downstairs)

[stpetre]

The Don Cinema building is still there, opposite the Law Courts. The Brittania Theatre was across from the 'Hostel'.[/QUO

In the fifties my mother used to take me to a store just beyond the hostel on the same side, for clothes' and I could swear it was a branch of 'Wigfall's' who weren't known for haberdashery.

TE]

 

I don't live in Sheffield anymore but when I saw 'Law Courts' I had to go into Google Maps and look. Where did they come from and are they real courts? What happened to the Courts on Snig Hill? and while I'm about it, what happened to the Fire Headquarters on Wellington Street?

 

---------- Post added 04-03-2015 at 01:57 ----------

 

HERE it is. There are other threads on the hostel (very interesting). Do a search.

 

When I attended Burngreave school, we had a certain teacher who advised us to absorb everything we were taught, as a consequence of not doing so in later life was that we could become 'West Bar Hosteler's'. (I believe by 1960 the place had ceased to be that function) Some kids would look around in dis-belief not knowing what he meant, but a few of us did. Poor souls that had to live there, I bet nearly all war vets too!

[cuttsie]

The Bradford Woollen Co. occupied the former Don cinema; they extended the original building and renamed it "Progress House". It's now occupied by the Armadillo self-storage company.

 

The former West Bar hostel was occupied by P.W. Lacey - here's a photo. More information is in this thread..

The frontage on the Armadillo storage company is a planning disaster.

[hillsbro]

...What happened to the Courts on Snig Hill?...

The old Court House (formerly the Town Hall) was on the corner of Castle Street and Waingate. It closed many years ago and the (Grade II listed) building has, unfortunately, been empty and neglected ever since - see here. The Magistrates' Court moved to a new building nearby in the angle of Castle Street and Snig Hill, and the Crown Court moved to another new building on West Bar, almost opposite the former Don cinema.

The frontage on the Armadillo storage company is a planning disaster.

It certainly is.. Edited March 4, 2015 by hillsbro

[soft ayperth]

when I was growing up my dad would often say if you don't start behaving I'll send you down to west bar hostel for a night.