Archer Road history

[lubylou]

Does anyone remember what was on Archer Road where Sainsburys is now? Lived round there most of my life and just cannot remember. Someone said it was a bakery?

[Jon26]

I can remember some big chimney(s) being felled in the late 70s / early 80s to give space to build Sainsburys. I think a lot of theta space was for Laycocks.

[fatrajah]

Pickford's refractory works was on that site. Pickfords was opposite where the car dealership is now. However, most of Sainsburys was built on the former Laycocks site.

Edited December 7, 2013 by fatrajah

[Daven]

I believe Laycocks filled the whole of the space where Sainsburys and the small retail part and gym are now.

The social club is still across the road.

[lubylou]

Thanks for the replies, nice to know it wasnt a bakery then . Only was told a sort of ghost story involving 3 people dying in the bakery lift

[Daven]

Wasn't there a bakery beyond the corner where the beer shop is ?

Thorntons chocolates used to have a factory where the newish block of flats are on that corner.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Daven

[Nagel]

The university physics department ran an experimental atomic reactor on the Tesco's site in the 1950s.

[scargill]

S&E co=op use to own quite a large site there, it was a warehousing complex and dairy, so could have housed a bakery at some point.

 

courtesy of Picture Sheffield

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s09966&pos=10&action=zoom&id=13056

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s09967&pos=11&action=zoom&id=13057

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s09972&pos=16&action=zoom&id=13062

Edited December 7, 2013 by scargill

[hillsbro]

When trainspotting at Millhouses station in the mid-1950s I remember a brickworks on the other side of the railway line, and this is confirmed by a 1950s map that shows the "Marriott Wood Brick Works" just where the Sainsbury's building is now. Its three kilns would account for the chimneys that Jon26 recalled in post #2. Here is a comparison of the map and an aerial view from Google Earth. Laycock's "Victoria Works" was a bit further to the right, where Sainsburys' car park, McDonald's etc. are now.

[gobbldegoop]

The S&E coop did have a very large bakery on its site on Archer road. It was the first building on the right as you went down the cobblestone drive. As well as the Bakery the site had the milk processing and bottling plant, grocery warehouse, butchery and transportation depot for all S&E vehicles including milk floats, hursts, removal wagons and general delivery vans, it also had its own 2 pump petrol station and full mechanical repair garage. Many other departments existed to support the coop on that site, but they were the main ones. A bit before my time, but it also had stables for the horse drawn coal deliveries once the coal was offloaded on their railway siding! Apart from the entrance just off the bend (near Ulverstone Road) there was little indication that the site was so big, apart from the single building which was originally a shoe factory (almost opposite the Laycock sports ground) which is now the only building standing from the whole complex.

The site stretched from the back yards of the houses on Archer Road to the rail lines, and as far along Archer Road as the Shoe factory so it was probably as large in area as Laycocks.