This area is dominated by the large Cole Brother's Department Store. Right in the centre of the drinking area of town, there are some well established pubs, and many brand new bars and late bars ( mascarading as clubs ). This zone is right next door to Devonshire & West, so there is more variety here than a packet of liqurice allsorts. Being the centre of town, the bus and taxis are regular and numerous. This is the traditional drinking mecca of town, where weekend crowds gather before moving on to clubs, which are dotted all around the area.

In 2008 I wrote :-

Pubs/Bars are listed in alphabetical order.

The Yorkshireman's Arms Was always a big stop on the rock scene, people were either going from the Wap to the Yorkshireman, or the Yorkshireman to the Wap Before meeting up later on in Rebs The most memorable events here, included Terrorvision playing in the back yard, the manager having to climb in the first floor window to let us in, and the Dangerous brothers licking the payphone reciever until it fell apart. Used to have a fantastic Video Jukebox c1989 Burgess Street October 2000

8 years on in March 2008, the pub has been a Gay bar for some time and now is advertising for a short term tennant before it is demolished.

Below the Familiar canyon of Burgess street, we see the golden windows of the fountain precinct in the distance, which will be the only building still standing in 5 years time. Everything else in this view will soon be demolished. On the left we have the old Cole Brother's Store, now called John Lewis, the red framed building in the centre was the Odeon cinema which replaced the Old Gaumont cinema before becoming the Kingdom nightclub ( jokingly dubbed Mingdom by local wags). The brick building on the far right is the back of the Salvation Army Citadel which has been disused for about 8 or 10 years when they moved out to their new premises at Psalter Lane.

Henry's Cambridge Street Dec 1999 This bar was the first café bar in Sheffield, Opened in the 1980's. Origionally just the corner, and later expanding into the old Barlycorn pub, which was the rightmost side of the premises. Always thought of as trendy, this bar is classy probably the best of the 30 or so café bars, wich now pepper the city.

Henry's - 12th March 2008, was most recently City Bar, but now it is borded up awaiting demolition

 

Barcentro and Breez Cambridge Street Dec 1999 The right hand portion of this building was built as Bethel Sunday School in 1852

And Finally in March 2008 we can see that Breez has become Stardust Bar and Barcentro has changed it's name to the Cutler. In it's familiar location between Henry's and Cole Brothers(John Lewis) Toy department which appears to be almost emptied out, these buildings will soon be all demolished. In the Foreground we see the main Cole Brother's (John Lewis) store entrance at the back corner which will be closing when the new building is constructed in 2 or 3 year's time where the Main Fire Station is today.

Weatherspoon's Cambridge Street Dec 1999

The old Red Lion is looking sorry for itself on the 23rd of March 2008

Edwards is now Reflex the 80's bar ( notice the unneccesary greengrocer's apostrophe)

Casbah Written 2000

   The Casbah has expanded into the shops above, where it has a street level cafe bar with a tapas theme. The downstairs is now called The Casbah Club and this room is open until 2am. The upstairs room has a licence between 11am and 11pm.
    On Certain nights you have to pay £2.50 or £3 to go down to the club bar.  They have regular themed nights for rock and indie, and even electronic music. And regular gigs.
    There is a cloakroom, and a bar football downstairs.

At this point I am going to stray from the pure "pubs" theme because the whole feel and structure of this district is about to be completely changed by an enormous retail scheme which will swallow the whole area and cause most of the buildings and some streets to be demolished. .... March 2008

Casbah  Update 12th March 2008

The Casbah (former Wapentake) exists in the first floor and basement in the Grosvenor Hotel Block. This whole block is currently scheduled to be demolished in September 2008. What will emerge in the area will be the New Retail Quarter "Sevenstone" and at this location a new block with a triangular skyscraper of around 27 storeys which will have 2 bedroom, 1 bedroom apartments as well as studio apartments.

Here is the above ground corner of the Casbah on the Junction of Cambridge Street (to the left) and Wellington Street ( to the right). The corner door is the main entrance, but the other door on Wellington street is the original Wapentake Bar Entrance. In the 1980s this corner unit was a branch of Northern Rock!

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Below is a view of Cambridge Street as it descends to join Pinstone Street and the Moor. It shows the extent of the Grosvenor Block with it's car parking levels behind the airbricks on the first and second floors, ground floor retail units and hotel on the top floor of the low rise section with guestrooms in the tower above. The painted out windows above the Casbah are the toilets for the ground floor bar, which are upstairs on the first floor.

The 3rd floor with the tall windows is the main base floor of the hotel. It contains the Reception, the bar lounge with grand piano, an enormous dining room with a small dance floor and bar, lift lobby and everything else you would expect in the faded splendour of a reinforced concrete late 1960s modern hotel.

Back in the days of the Wapentake, the manager Olga, wore the uniform of a Hotel Manager and she had a corporate name badge with Trust House Forte on it, which is the owners of the hotel and the Grosvenor group.

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And again a slight variation of the angle showing the edge of the corner which was originally Henry's Bar

While we are on the subject, here are some photos of the front of the building which were taken 3 days earlier.

This hotel was built in 1966 and at 47 metres tall, for 40 years was the 8th tallest building in sheffield.

Above, you can see the 9 storey tower which houses the guest rooms of the hotel. This black and white tower is clearly visable from several miles away.

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Below a second shot showing details of the retail on the pavement level. In the centre, beneath the canopy is the main hotel entrance, Vijay's Curry house was for many years the council run Anvil Cinema. This side is located in Charter Square.

Here from the same observation point we can see the bulk of the John Lewis block and it's layers of car parking, In the centre is the rear of Henry's and The Cutler, with it's back yard for smokers. The large barn shaped building to the left of The Cutler is the John Lewis Toys department, which will also soon disappear. Wellington Street is the road coming toward us in the centre of the picture and the corner of the Grosvenor block can be seen above the tree on the far right of the picture. The pay and display car park has been closed for around 12 months.

Looking farther down Wellington street, we see the Central Fire Station on the right and the BT tower on the left.

The Fire station has only been built for about 25 years and soon it will be the site for the new John Lewis Store. As you can see it is a very interesting design with hidden gutters and multiple facets of diagonal lines.

Here the firemen are washing cars to raise money for charity. This front entrance of the fire station looks down onto Charter Square