Gleadless Valley - Housing Development

Housing Development

In 1955 work began on the Gleadless Valley housing estate and would continue until 1962. Farmland was bought up by Sheffield City Council by compulsory purchase order 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, maisonettes 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.

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 660 feet (200 m) 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. 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.