retiredmartin

August 2026. Abbeydale Road. Sheffield.

A tiny bit of culture between the pubs, and Sheffield does culture better than most.

I’ve seen ballet, theatre, symphonies, comedy and major photographic exhibitions seen we moved North; it’s not all gallons of Magnet and chip butties here, you know.

Sheffield presents its industrial heritage in half a dozen free museums across the city.

Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, just beyond the brewery 10 minutes south of town, has a tiny touch of Beamish about it, though closer in scale to that Fenland farm museum near Waterbeach that Dad loved.

A major centre for scythes and steel in the 18th century, abandoned 200 years later and donated as is to Sheffield to show what proper work looked like, before AI and pub blogging.

The courtyard of old workers cottages is “cute”, but what stands out is how little has changed in a century, there’s been absolutely no attempty to Disneyfy the site.

Even with a nosey round the managers house,

presumably filled with books and sheet music* from Mr Straw’s House, you can be in and out in 20 minutes.

No great pubs close by, mind, it’s a bit “Ember Inn” on Abbeydale Road. So we’ll press on into Derbyshire, shall we ?

*_{Expect “When the mists have rolled away” to be in my music recommendations for August}