So you may be coming along to our artswalk at Parkwood Springs tomorrow, or perhaps you're just curious about this little-known part of Sheffield and would like to know a little more. Being born and bred in Sheffield, and
as a natural explorer, I can say with confidence that Parkwood
Springs is one of the most interesting and varied spaces that the
city has to offer. It has a chequered and controversial history,
previously being a deer park, but now known primarily as a landfill
site. Its use as a tip seems to have begun during the industrial
revolution, when waste from local metalworks found a convenient home
within its open space. Since then, the horizon of Parkwood Springs
has altered dramatically – it has grown a new ‘ridge’ where
there once was a valley. Thankfully, following advocacy and campaigning,
tipping will cease on the site in 2018, with public access being
granted by 2020. You may want to check out the excellent work of the
dedicated friends of Parkwood Springs group
here.
Despite all this industrial activity, Parkwood Springs is actually an
unsung wildlife haven, an unofficial nature reserve. It recalls
spaces either forgotten, overlooked or inaccessible, such as the
edges of motorways, railways, and riverbanks, where nature reigns
unchecked by humankind. Access to some of its areas is improbable, as
it presents numerous obstacles and dead-ends, keeping out most would-be adventurers.
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Entrance to
Parkwood Springs at the top of Rutland Road
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Despite my trepidation due to the
isolation and mystique surrounding the place, I have made a number of
successful forays into Parkwood Springs. Speaking to whoever I bumped
into, I have been incredibly fortunate to talk with a variety of
characters who just happened to be out on the hill.
The first person I met on the site
was a security guard who works in the power station behind Owlerton
Stadium. I was at the top of the ruined Ski Village when I met him,
watching two scavengers salvaging wood from the remains of one of the
burnt out structures at the bottom of the slope. This man told me he
was walking to work, forging a shortcut across the hill, and he asked
if I knew the way. I said I didn’t, but we looked at my crumpled
map, a print out on a scrap piece of A4, and I made a suggestion that
he followed. Afterwards I realised I’d sent him the wrong way,
though I wasn’t to know then, being new to the area. Hopefully he
was still able to clock in on time.
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| The current state of the Sheffield Ski Village |
The second person I met was a woman
with a camera, walking around what is called the ‘forest garden’,
a community project where food is grown and fruit trees have been
planted. She said her name was Fran, that she was doing a PhD in
landscape architecture at Sheffield University, and is working to
re-imagine the future of Parkwood Springs. It also turns out that
she’s an author and award winning landscape photographer – if
you’re interested you can see her work
here.
It’s not without reason that Parkwood Springs has attracted someone
with an eye so finely tuned to the aesthetics of the landscape.
The third person I met was a local
man called Roy. I had cycled round the back of the tip, and was
following my nose, beginning to descend down an access lane, when I
slowed down for someone coming the other way. Ray had silver hair,
three dogs, and a walking stick with various bangles and badges
hanging from the handle. He walked slowly and steadily. I asked him
if I could get through to the valley by going down the path, and he
said there was a way, if I was happy to cross over the railway line,
but it might be tricky with a bike.
We turned and walked back up the hill
together, and I asked him about the area. He told me he had lived
locally all his life, that he has a number of children and even more
grandchildren. He comes out to walk his dogs as often as possible,
and described himself as an outdoors man. He was wearing tracksuit
trousers, a polo neck t-shirt, and had a set of strikingly white
teeth.
Being a shy sort, working on a
project like this provides a wonderful excuse to talk to people, and
so I plucked up the courage to ask him if he’d like to meet again
to talk about his memories of the area. He said yes, but that he
didn’t know his phone number as he only ever rings out, that he
doesn’t have a mobile and isn’t on the internet. He said if I
wanted to meet him again I would find him here most days, walking his
dogs through the forgotten wilderness of Parkwood Springs beneath
expansive urban skies. Well, he didn’t exactly use those words, but
that is exactly what he does.
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| Parkwood has some of the best views in town |
A few weeks later, after going on an
excellent tour of Parkwood Springs led by the knowledgable and
dedicated Neill Schofield of the ‘Friends Of’ group, I was put in
touch with a man called Ray Swift, who actually used to live on the
Parkwood Springs estate. Ray invited me to his house on Shirecliffe,
where we sat down for two hours and he reminisced about his memories.
He grew up in Parkwood Springs ‘village’, partly situated where
the remains of the Ski Village stand today, hemmed in by nature and
mega-industry. An audio recording of his amazing and unique stories
will be uploaded onto this blog in the coming weeks.
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| Quarried faces at the edge of where Parkwood Springs estate once stood |
And so, with all this talk of forgotten
spaces I have neglected to mention Wardsend Cemetery, which I
explored before I even set foot onto Parkwood Springs ‘proper’.
After doing a web search, I contacted the Friends of Wardsend
Cemetery, and received a swift and welcoming response from a man
called George Proctor. You can find out more about the fantastic job
the Friends of Wardsend Cemetery are doing
here.
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Pete Quincey,
left, and George Proctor, right, of the Friends of Wardsend Cemetery
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George Proctor and Pete Quincey were
kind enough to give me an impromptu guided tour, during which they
spoke at length of the stories behind the gravestones. The cemetery
is quite a sight to behold – tumbled and leaning stones nestled in
maturing woodland, ferns and brambles everywhere, paths overgrown and
lost within the green. The main access to the cemetery is over a
bridge behind the Owlerton Stadium, where a set of stairs by an
isolated scrapyard forms the present day threshold. The old entrance
is just down the muddy track known as Club Mill Road, where you can
trace the route that coffins would have been carried along to the
site of the old chapel, the foundations of which are the only sign
left that it ever existed.
These meetings and forays have helped
me to understand what Parkwood Springs really is, yet this is only
the beginning of the research. In the coming weeks, we will be
uploading more photographs, video, and audio interviews that will
help to reveal the space in even more detail. And there is a chance
for you to play a part in this, through the artswalk this coming
Saturday. I do hope you can make it, discover the space for yourself
and play a part in the present and future of this remarkable city
centre resource. You might even have fun at the same time too!
Have you ever spent time in
Parkwood Springs? Do you have a memory or connection with the place?
If you do, we’d be delighted to hear from you! Please leave a
comment below, contact markdoyle1500@gmail.com,
or call the Art in the Park office on (0114) 2686813.
