Gleadless Valley is a

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex, housing development, subdivision (land), subdivision or community) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to count ...

and electoral ward of the City of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

in England. The population of the estate at the 2021 Census was 9,724. It lies south-southeast of the city centre. Formerly a rural area, Gleadless Valley was developed as a large housing project with around 4000 dwellings by

Sheffield City Council Sheffield City Council is the local authority for the City of Sheffield, a metropolitan borough with city status in South Yorkshire, England. The council consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors. ...

between 1955 and 1962.''"A History Of Sheffield"'', David Hey, Carnegie Publishing, , Page 276, “Generally recognised as the most successful of the post war housing developments” and details. It is an area of undulating land drained by the

Meers Brook The Meers Brook is a brook in Sheffield, England, and one of the main tributaries of the River Sheaf. It originates in Gleadless and flows downhill through Gleadless Valley and Meersbrook then, culverted, continues underneath Heeley to pour i ...

, which has its source on the high ground in the woodland at

Gleadless Gleadless () is a suburb and parish A Church Near You.
Parish Map. within the City ...

. Adjacent are

Gleadless Gleadless () is a suburb and parish A Church Near You.
Parish Map. within the City ...

to the east, Norton to the south-west,

Heeley Heeley was a cluster of small villages which now form a suburb in the south of the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The village has existed at least since 1343, its name deriving from ''Heah Leah'', ''High Lea'' then ''Hely'', mea ...

to the west and Arbourthorne to the north.

History

Prior to the middle of the 19th century Gleadless valley was an area of isolated

ancient woodland In the United Kingdom, ancient woodland is that which has existed continuously since 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). The practice of planting woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 1600 i ...

with some farmland. Buck Wood to the north of the valley is a modern name but in John Harrison’s survey of the manor of Sheffield in 1637 it was known as Berrystorth which is an

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

name which implies a wood of great antiquity. Much of the present day woodland has a wide range of ancient woodland indicator species including Bluebell,

Dog's mercury ''Mercurialis perennis'', commonly known as dog's mercury, is a poisonous woodland plant found in much of Europe as well as in Algeria, Iran, Turkey, and the Caucasus, but almost absent from Ireland, Orkney and Shetland.Common wood sorrel and

Yellow archangel ''Lamiastrum galeobdolon'', the yellow archangel, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family (biology), family Lamiaceae. It is native to Europe and western Asia but it is widely introduced in North America and elsewhere. It is the only s ...

. Herdings Wood was the main area of trees in the valley in ancient times, this was later subdivided into Leeshall Wood, The Lumb and Rollestone Wood as well as Herdings Wood itself. It was first mentioned in a document dated 1642 which stated that William Chaworth, Lord and Knight of Norton had given permission for John Cotes and John Parker to fell and turn into charcoal a certain amount of trees in Herdyng Wood. Farming took place in the valley before the 17th century and wooded areas which were suitable for agricultural land were gradually felled leaving the woodland on the steep valley sides of the Meers Brook and its tributaries. The expansion of Sheffied in the second half of the 19th century took in the nearby areas of

and

Meersbrook Meersbrook () is a neighbourhood of the Heeley area in the south-west of Sheffield, England, 2 miles south of the city centre and bordered by Norton Lees to the south and the Meersbrook allotment site (the largest allotment site in Europe) to ...

and this had an indirect effect on the Gleadless Valley as it started to be used for walks and recreation by the residents of these areas. By the 20th century, allotments and sports grounds had been laid out in the valley and Lees Hall golf club was established in 1907. Nearby Arbourthorne housing estate was built in the 1930s but even so the valley retained its rural charm and continued to be farmed. Local historian J. Edward Vickers called the valley at this time, ''“A beautiful stretch of open countryside and woodland, extending from Heeley to Norton”.''''"The Ancient Suburbs Of Sheffield"'', J. Edward Vickers, No ISBN, Page 33, Gives this quote The valley continued to be farmed into the 1950s exhibiting a landscape of scattered farms, woodland and hedge lined fields. Buck Wood - History and Heritage.
Gives history of woodland and valley.

Housing development

In 1955 work began on the Gleadless Valley housing estate and would continue until 1962. Farmland was bought up by

compulsory purchase order A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for ...

and the three districts of the new Gleadless Valley estate were named after the former farms of Herdings, Hemsworth and Rollestone. The project was planned to accommodate 17000 residents and was overseen by the city architect J.L. Womersley. The housing is diverse and includes

tower blocks A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. ...

maisonettes An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement (Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that ...

of various designs, three storey patio houses and more conventional houses with flat roofs as well as apartments for the elderly. One of the main challenges for Womersley when designing the scheme was the rolling terrain of the area, with slopes averaging 1 in 8 and reaching 1 in 4 in places. He overcame this by using patio houses, chalet-type housing and blocks of cluster houses which could be varied in design to suit the slope. The way that the housing was built impressively on the contours of the land and the retention of the ancient woodland is the reason that the Gleadless Valley project is held in such high esteem. Gleadless Valley view

Two tower block schemes are incorporated into the project, three blocks were built at Herdings at Raeburn Place in 1959. These blocks are built at an altitude of over and are a significant landmark on the Sheffield skyline. They were the first tower blocks to be built in Sheffield and were constructed by a London firm because no Sheffield contractor felt confident to take on the project. One of the blocks was demolished in the mid 1990s after it was found that it had been built on a fault and was unsafe. The two remaining blocks were refurbished and re-clad in 1998. Sheffield Tower Blocks and High rise Apartments of the 20th Century.
Gives details of tower blocks at Raeburn Place. Six more tower blocks were built at Callow Mount, Drive and Place in 1962 at the northern end of Gleadless Valley close to Newfield Green and these too were re-clad and modernised in the late 1990s.
Gives details of tower blocks at Callow Mount.''"Pevsner Architectural Guides - Sheffield"'', Ruth Harman & John Minnis, Yale University Press, , Pages 243 - 246, Gives details of housing development and significant buildings.

Amenities

Gleadless Valley is served by two GP surgeries, Gleadless Medical Centre covers the northern part of the suburb at 636 Gleadless Road while the Sloan Medical Centre at 29 Blackstock Road serves the southern area. Primary schools in the area are Bankwood Community Primary School on Bankwood Close which has around 380 pupils and serves the northern part of the suburb and Valley Park Community School on Norton Avenue with around 390 pupils which serves the southern area. There are no secondary schools on the estate, the nearest two being Sheffield Springs Academy on Hurlfield Road and Newfield Secondary School on Lees Hall Road, both schools have around 1100 pupils. Gleadless Valley Comprehensive, which was fed from Bankwood, Hemsworth and Herdings Primary Schools respectively and was sited on Matthews Lane in Norton was demolished in 1994. Gleadless Valley has three small shopping centres to serve the three districts within the suburb. The Herdings district has a small area of shops on Morland Road near the tower blocks. The Hemsworth area has a group of shops midway along Blackstock Road known as the Gaunt shops while the Rollestone district has a retail area at Newfield Green. The only public recreation area in the suburb is Herdings Park which has two

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

pitches, a

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

green and a children's playground, as well as open parkland. The Blackstock Road Household Waste Recycling Centre is located within Gleadless Valley, it is run by Veolia Environmental Services on behalf of Sheffield City Council. Veolia Environmental Services.
Gives details of Blackstock Road HWRC. The purple route of the

Sheffield Supertram The South Yorkshire Supertram, sometimes referred to as the Sheffield Supertram, is a tram and tram-train network covering Sheffield and Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. The network is owned and operated by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Co ...

system terminates at Herdings Park giving good transport links for the southern part of the suburb while the

First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

bus number 1a has a frequent service starting at Herdings (with 20 starting at, and 18 and 18a serving, Hemsworth) and serving the rest of the Gleadless Valley and

Stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

bus 1 from Jordanthorpe on their way to Sheffield city centre 25 minutes away.

Buildings of interest

The Herdings

There are two

listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

within the estate, both of them Grade II and standing in the southern part of the suburb. The Herdings is an old farmhouse which stands on Morland Road. Much of the building dates from 1675 and that is the date on the lintel, it was built around the remaining three trusses of an earlier and larger

cruck A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which support the roof of a building, historically used in England and Wales. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally naturally curved, timber members that lean inwards and ...

building. The oldest part of the building stands on Saxon foundations and dates from the 13th century, there are claims that it is the second oldest building in Sheffield after Bishops' House. During the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

stood close by. When the Gleadless Valley estate was built in the 1950s, The Herdings was converted into a Youth Club. The building suffered a fire a number of years ago and stood derelict for some time with no roof on. It was eventually fully restored and opened as a community venue in November 2010 known as the One 4 All Community Hub. Gleadless Valley Community Forum.
Gives details of One 4 All Community Hub Gives details of The Herdings.

Bagshawe Arms

The other listed building is the Bagshawe Arms on Norton Avenue, this was built by the Bagshawe family of Oakes Park in Norton. It was originally a farmhouse, some of the farm buildings can still be seen at the rear, it was enlarged and renovated in 1829. The stable at the back of the pub has a flight of stairs going up the outside, this goes to an upper long room that was formerly the petty sessions court. British Listed Buildings.
Gives details of Bagshawe Arms. Holy Cross Church, Gleadless Valley is a church on Spotswood Mount. The other place of worship in the suburb is the Gleadless Valley Methodist Church on Blackstock Road, near the Gaunt shops, dating from 1960 and designed by J. Mansell Jenkinson & Son, it features a separated tower made up of four brick piers with a cross on top.

References

{{Districts of Sheffield Housing estates in Sheffield