4.2 Cathedral Quarter

Character

The Cathedral Quarter is located in the northern part of the City Centre Conservation Area. Situated on a steep slope, dramatic views are afforded north over the Don Valley to Woodside and Parkwood Springs and east along High Street. Its focus is the historic core around the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The street pattern reflects the city’s medieval origins and later development as a speculative residential area in the Georgian era. Originally Sheffield’s middle class suburb, today the Cathedral Quarter is predominantly a business precinct for legal and property services. There is also some retail on the ground floor of converted Georgian and Victorian terraces.

However, since the development of the Law Courts at West Bar, many of the quarter’s legal tenants have moved from the area to sites nearer the Courts. Paradise Street provides the main connecting route to the Law Courts but the quality of the environment requires improvement to strengthen this relationship.

The Cathedral Quarter has several distinct character areas:

• Queen Street and Campo Lane. The streets adjoining Paradise Square such as North Church Street, St. Peter’s Close and Fig Tree Lane contain a relatively intact group of 19th century buildings. An important feature of the area is the steeply sloping lanes, alleys and courtyards, many of which have early origins.
  
• Paradise Square. Mainly given over to legal practices occupying Georgian townhouses, Paradise Square possesses great uniformity of style and character. As Sheffield’s only complete Georgian Square it is an ensemble of great importance.
  
• The Cathedral Precinct. Formerly a parish church, the intimate scale and character of the Cathedral and its surroundings is an unusual yet distinctive feature of the area’s character. There are also groups of Victorian and Georgian buildings. The area contains some of Sheffield’s finest buildings and is of great historical significance and sensitivity.

Also of significance are the municipal housing developments in Hawley Street/Townhead Street. Constructed in the 1890s, they are an early example of redevelopment after slum clearance.

Significant buildings of the Cathedral Quarter are:

• Cathedral Precinct;
  
• Paradise Square;
  
• Telegraph and Star Building;
  
• Hawley Street and Townhead Street municipal housing;
  
• Cutler’s Hall.

There are also some modern buildings within the quarter in the form of larger scale office development located around the periphery of the quarter, namely along Tenter Street and West Bar. A recent development at Hartshead Square to the east of the quarter has seen the creation of office accommodation, a hotel and a new civic space at the termination of one of the quarter’s key streets.

The quarter has a three principal open spaces: Cathedral Square, which is an attractive and well used space; the Georgian Paradise Square, which is now used for car parking; Castle Square and the new Hartshead Square.

The quarter is generally well maintained and offers an extremely attractive environment. Despite its central city location, the Cathedral Quarter has a quiet and peaceful atmosphere and feels distant from the activity of the surrounding quarters.

Car parking is a major problem in the area which significantly detracts from its quality and charm. In addition to the lost potential of Paradise Square, the cars reduce the permeability of the intriguing closes and lanes within the quarter.

The architecture of the quarter generally comprises a comfortable mix of older buildings adapted for reuse and modern commercial buildings. However, much of the peripheral postwar development, particularly along Tenter Street, has not respected the scale of character of the quarter. Traditional materials are mostly red brick with details of local gritstone used for ashlar work and Welsh slate as roofing.

While the major streets of the quarter are finished with simple tarmac and concrete curbing, the side streets offer a more interesting pedestrian experience with many of the original surfaces intact. This includes natural Yorkstone kerbs, slabs and setts on certain streets, lanes and in Paradise Square.

The quarter is in close proximity to the excellent transport links of the supertram and has good pedestrian, bus and cycle routes throughout.

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