19th-Century Cellars and a Bread Oven, South Yorkshire

CFA Archaeology undertook a strip, map and record excavation at the Lightbox Development in the Cultural Industries Quarter of Sheffield City Centre between January and April 2018, with a final visit in July 2019. The work was carried out on the site of the former Eon Works; a heat treatment steel works that was located between Earl Street, Eyre Lane, and Hallam Lane, south-west of the city centre.

The archaeological works uncovered the remains of a number of cellars from buildings built on the site from around 1822. Prior to the construction of the Eon Steel Works c.1940, the site contained a block of back-to-back or ‘blindback’ houses, various shops and at least one public house, centred around six courtyards. The properties on the site were occupied for around a century, from at least the 1830s until the mid-1930s, when the site was cleared as part of widespread slum clearances within inner city Sheffield.

At its peak, many types of businesses were found here, including The Royal Hotel and Public House (corner of Earl Street/Eyre Lane), an Oil and Fat Warehouse (later a cutlery works), a beer-house, a boot and shoemakers, a spring knife manufacturer and a fried fish dealer and other shops.

Excitingly, the excavation uncovered the remains of a large bakers’ oven built into the rear of the cellar at No.2 Hallam Lane. The oven was brick-built and measured 2.85m in diameter. The large size of the oven suggested that No. 2 Hallam Lane may have originally been a commercial baker’s premises that fronted on to Hallam Lane, with the property at No.59 Earl Street acting as the shop front.