The move to Solly Street #1

I've previously blogged about the GA's move from 343 Fulwood Road to Solly Street in 1996-7

Fulwood Road was the GA's HQ from the mid 1960s to the late 1990s.

Frances Soar, Chief Adminstrator of the GA for many years got me started on some of her memories of this time. She was involved in assisting with the move, and some additional complications from the time, which I have blogged about previously.

The old Roman Catholic area of St Vincent's is certainly worth further study - an excellent book about it was published by the Church when they moved up to Crookes: it's available on line The Sheffield Indexers - History of St Vincents written by Ted Cummings.

Frances is the first of several people who will share their memories. It is a pity the memories of some of the other moves of the GA are not so easy to collect.

Frances told me:

At the back of Solly Street when we first moved in, before the block of flats just above us on Solly St. was built, there were still apple trees from the time when the area had old housing, and I once met a lady who remembered visiting her grandparents in a house there when she was small. Some of the trees were still there in my time, by the access drive to the back yard.

343 Fulwood Road was a lovely old house, but totally impractical for housing the publications business that had become such an important part of the GA's service. Deliveries of new publications were by then arriving shrink wrapped on pallets in huge delivery vehicles that couldn't get down the narrow, bendy, drive. 

We had to unload boxes from pallets on big lorries parked on the main road, and cart the heavy boxes down to the house one by one, sometimes reversing my poor little Austin Metro up the drive and back down again with a few boxes in the boot each time, all under the impatient gaze of the lorry driver who was anxious to get to his next drop. 

Once inside, we had to cart the boxes up steep steps to the first floor, where they filled the spaces around and under our desks until sold, or were hauled up to the attic where we nervously stacked them as close to the walls as possible, hoping that the weight wouldn't bring down the ceiling.

Eventually we were forced to move most of our stock to the premises of a local storage company. Unfortunately, they moved our stock to a less secure location without telling us, and a fire there destroyed the lot. 

Lack of storage space also meant that each quarter we had to hope that all the deliveries of journals and their inserts would arrive at exactly the same time, on the same morning and at the same place (a local church hall) so that we could prepare everything for mailing, helped by a small army of volunteers. I lost count of the times we had to postpone the whole exercise because one journal had been delayed for some reason.

It was clear that we needed either to 'outsource' everything, or find a proper warehouse and packing space, as well as offices for the GA staff and meeting rooms for the GA committees, ideally within easy reach of the railway station and with good vehicle access for deliveries.

The problem was finding suitable alternative premises. 

After careful consideration, the GA decided to stay in Sheffield, so we started looking locally, discovering all too soon that whilst it was fairly easy to find a suitable warehouse with a small office, or suitable offices with a tiny storage area, finding the two combined was a real challenge. With the help of former GA President Professor Stan Gregory, who lived in Sheffield and who volunteered to take part in the search, we looked at various possible places in and around Sheffield, eventually drawing up a shortlist for further consideration. 

On a hot June Saturday in 1996 my Metro was pressed into service once again to take several Officers including I think Ashley Kent and Neil Simmonds to look at a few possible buildings. At some point I pulled off the road close to the town centre for us to 'take stock' before the visitors had to catch their trains home, which was when Ashley (I think) spotted a 'to let' board on a nearby building. Peering at what we could see of the empty premises we realised it was worth further investigation. 

A little bit of serendipity then in the choice of location.

Solly Street is located in an area called 'St. Vincent's', once the heart of Sheffield's Catholic community, which had developed into a centre of old Sheffield industries such as toolmakers and knife manufacturers. 

By the 1990s, further changes were happening, as manufacturers with viable businesses began to move to more suitable premises elsewhere, and others, sadly, disappeared altogether. Many of the old church buildings along Solly Street were becoming run down, St Vincent's Church itself having been empty for some years. 

I occasionally used the parking business which opened up in the old church yard as an overflow option when the spaces outside Solly Street were full, or were needed for visitors.

Our building had been built by a stainless steel architectural fabricator for his own business - hence the smart stainless stair rail and front door we inherited. 

This I did not know!

After he retired it had been let by his widow and daughters to various companies. 

As our GA geographers astutely spotted, this was a good time to take up a lease there, as the area had huge but as yet unrealised potential for upgrading. This is of course what has happened, with old factories and patches of wasteland replaced by modern apartment blocks, and the former church and its ancillary buildings improved for other uses. I remember watching foxes in the waste ground opposite the GA.

Whilst preparing the staff for the move, Frances timed how long it took to walk up to the city centre and what sort of walk it would be. Staff were going to miss the shops, bank and other services at Broomhill so it was helpful to know they could easily get to and from the city centre. 

Coincidentally, two former members of the GA's staff at Solly Street now run a business in Broomhill called Ginger. More on Lucy Oxley and Anne Greaves' involvement with the GA as we get nearer to the present day.

The Trustees agreed to take the Solly Street lease a quarter before the Fulwood Road lease expired, so we were able to prepare the old premises for our departure and the new premises for our arrival without disrupting services to members. It was quite moving to say goodbye to a building that had been such an important part of the GA's history, with its impressive fireplaces and other original features no longer boxed in or covered up, looking much more like the proud private house it once was, ready for new occupants.

An early task at Solly Street was to persuade the authorities to give the building, then called 'Greco House', a proper address with a street number - a surprisingly complex exercise. 

The GA did contemplate inventing another name for the building, but characteristically chose to be practical rather than pretentious.

Further memories of the move to Solly Street to come...