Peter TuffreySheffield Flats: From High Rise to Eyesore

Very good book this, it highlights the problems that many council housing estates have. I've never lived on Hyde Park or Park Hill but I did live in other 1960s created Sheffield estates and they had similar problems in that at the start the community spirit is good and then problems start to appear. Let's face it Hyde Park Block B should never have been built, at 18 storeys it looked overpowering even horrendous. It's easy to be wise after the event but honestly somebody made a bad decision in the Council offices. The book highlights the social problems spawned by the developments and it makes you wonder what sort of person would throw a TV off a multi storey block to kill a young girl. Great book and it would be nice if a book was written about the Kelvin Estate, a similar development in another area of the city.

As a photographer with a strong interest in architecture I've been mesmerised by Park Hill in the last few years, following the regeneration and looking into what went before it. There's something uneasy about the building that sits glowering over the city, drawing me in every time I step off a train. In its current transitional state it is largely uninhabited and there is an edgy silence about it, save for doors banging in the breeze through broken windows, and birds nesting in the old balconies.This book covers the entire history to date of Park Hill in bite size chunks and anecdotes, as well as its even more notorious neighbour Hyde Park. As the previous reviewer has expressed, it's a shame it doesn't cover the Kelvin flats as well but nevertheless this was an interesting and worthwhile read. In fact I'd read other books by this author on the social and industrial heritage of the area off the back of it.

As someone with an interest in 20th Century history, especially history of the late 20th century local to Sheffield and as someone that has done a lot of reading about these flat complexes, I was excited to find this book.The photographs are great and the short stories of events which happened at the complexes really give you a sense of what life was like in working class Sheffield both in post war aspirational times, through to the demise of industry in the city and high unemployment in the later part of the century.Most books on these subjects tend to be from academia and some what pretentious and hard work to read. This is not the case with this book and that is what makes it so enjoyable.It is a shame that the Kelvin complex was not included but never the less for anyone interested in local history or social housing, I highly recommend this book.

Good read if you have lived or visited SHEFFIELD

Great book bring back great memories of my days delivering milk on Hyde park in the early-mid 70s