12 Instagrammable places in Sheffield

Where is Sheffield? Sheffield is located in England. Unlike other large English cities, Sheffield never had many great monuments. However, you won't get bored because there are many things to do in Sheffield. Despite the wealth produced in the industrial era by the steelworks, the city has always moderated its pretensions and kept a rather modest face. Because of that earned its nickname of "the largest village in England". Where is Sheffield located exactly? In Yorkshire, the United Kingdom. Even if the centre's shopping streets are rather ordinary, Sheffield is still a pleasant place to walk and take most liked Instagram photos. Once you enter the quieter streets, you will quickly find many landmarks and historical sites. In this article, you will read about 12 instagrammable places in Sheffield. You will also find answers to your questions, such as what to see in Sheffield, what to do in Sheffield, etc. 

1. Symbol of power and influence, Wentworth Castle

The gardens are located next to a Victorian castle. The castle is not open to the public as it houses a hotel. The castle is surrounded by 200 ha: slightly undulating parkland and 25 hectares of beautiful gardens. The gardens consist partly of formal gardens, a border garden, and a "woodland garden" with a huge collection of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, and magnolias, so when visiting in May and June, you can enjoy a true colour feast. In the park is the beautiful ruin of Stainborough Castle, you can climb the tower of this ruin, and you have an Instagrammable view of the gardens and the surrounding parkland. Walking routes have been plotted in the surrounding parkland, and during a walk, you can enjoy the particularly beautiful landscape.

2. Chatsworth Castle

Chatsworth Castle is an immense palace set in the middle of an immense estate. The palace has a magnificent interior with splendid halls and precious furnishings, tapestries, paintings, and sculptures. The palace looks a bit austere and angular from the outside, but it is beautifully situated in the River Derwent's fairly shallow valley, surrounded by Instagrammable gardens. These formal gardens were laid out in 1690 and consist of an extensive lawn with modern avenues and a 250-meter long canal pond in which the high spouting seahorse fountain lies. On the east side of the house are the water stairs, a beautiful pavilion, the tropical greenhouse, a maze, and a rock garden with huge boulders. Chatsworth is very busy and is good for a whole day out, the admission price is not low, but considering the offer, it is certainly worth the price. Photography is possible in the palace.

3. Beautiful Sheffield Gardens

One of the must-do things to do in Sheffield is to visit its beautiful gardens. One hundred seventy forests in the area and 88 parks and public gardens - Sheffield is the greenest city in Europe, but that is not all. The University of Sheffield has also helped make the city a very good address in England. Many sights and picturesque surroundings make the former Steel City, the city of steel, an attractive city today. Sheffield's nickname was Steel City in the 18th century when the steel industry set the tone, and the steel mills drew many people from the countryside to the city to make money here. The first unions in England were formed in Sheffield, and it was steel that made the city rich. But many remained poor, and that is why there are still social hot spots in some parts of Sheffield today.

4. Heart of the city's, Sheffield City Center

You will see examples of Victorian architecture in the city centre. The centre of Sheffield has a very motley look, with large voids, concrete towers from the 1970s that overlook old brick houses, and modern buildings facing large Victorian public buildings. In the 19th century, small silver workshops and artisan foundries rubbed shoulders with department stores and residential streets, and Sheffield has always retained a rather disparate city centre. The city also suffered from the bombings of the Second World War, and the reconstruction was sometimes radical. Outside of its hyper-centre, Sheffield offers a wide variety of neighbourhoods, from residential suburbs to brownfields. The city is quite hilly, and many Instagrammable places offer views of the surrounding wooded hills.

5. The Best Shopping Center

You got your UK visa, and now you are in England thinking about what to do in Sheffield? You should go shopping. Sheffield city centre is quite extensive, and it includes small neighbourhoods that are quite different from each other. The commercial heart of the city stretches north to south, from Fargate Street to The Moor. The Moor includes the city's recently built covered market. The street also concentrates most of the department stores.

6. The municipal building: Sheffield Town Hall

Between Fargate and The Moor, you can see the imposing Neo-Gothic Town Hall. Next to it is the City Hall, which serves as a concert hall. The ceiling of the City Hall is especially beautiful to take most liked Instagram photos. Behind the Town Hall, there are some old streets, like around the small Catholic cathedral. There is also the Crucible Theater and the Lyceum Theater on Tudor Square, which forms a small "Theatreland." The Crucible hosts all the world snooker (billiards) championships. 

7. The famous Tudor Square

One of the things to do in Sheffield is to visit Tudor Square. It also overlooks the Millennium Gallery, a series of rooms where high-quality temporary exhibitions are held, in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery in London. The gallery opens onto the Winter Garden, a greenhouse housing several exotic trees and plants. Although not that big, this greenhouse is renowned for being the largest urban greenhouse in Europe.

8. Housing estate Park Hill

The city centre, near the bus station, is the city's oldest building, the Old Queen's Head pub (15th century). Modern buildings curiously surround it, and it is also overlooked by Park Hill, a huge low-cost housing estate from the 1950s, inspired by Corbusier's work. Park Hill also overlooks Sheffield Station, which dates back to 1870.

9. Sheffield Cathedral and its surroundings

To discover old Sheffield, you have to walk the northern part of the city centre, around the old castle's site, destroyed during the Civil War (17th century). This was at the confluence of the Don River and the Sheaf. This last river is no longer visible because it was covered in the 19th century. It now flows in a huge underground sewer, the Megatron, which serves as a spillway during floods. The district includes the cathedral, which was a simple parish church until 1914. The oldest parts of the cathedral date from the 13th and 15th centuries, but you will especially notice the extension of the 1960s and admire very beautiful old funerary monuments. The cathedral has been the burial place of the Earls of Shrewsbury since the Middle Ages.

10. The Cutlers' Hall and Paradise Square

The cathedral opens onto Church Street, crossed by a tram line. It is home to Cutlers' Hall, the headquarters of the Sheffield Cutlers Company. Built in 1832, it serves mainly as a reception area. The Cutlers' Hall is one of the city's most iconic landmarks, both for its magnificent interiors and because it evokes Sheffield's cutlers' prestige. The Hall can be visited during the Open Heritage Day in September. Behind the cathedral, you can see Paradise Square, a beautiful Georgian-era plaza, and a former 19th-century synagogue on North Church Street. Along the Don, several buildings from the industrial era, just like around the Victoria Quays, form the end of a 19th-century canal.

11. West End and Broomhill

The centre of Sheffield is rather concrete, but the city's green character comes into its own as you walk towards the University and Weston Park. Broomhill is separated from the West End's city centre and its streets full of shops and small bars and restaurants, Division Street and West Street. Sheffield is known in England for its old lamp posts, which were once powered by sewage gas. The system made it possible to burn off the gas overflow in the pipes while providing street lighting. About twenty street lamps of this type are now classified, for example, at the end of Victoria Street and on Westhill Lane, two streets located near Division Street and West Street. The district of Broomhill includes many green spaces, like Weston Park and The Ponderosa around the university, and especially the Botanical Gardens, which opened in 1836. They have large Victorian greenhouses which bring together plants from most regions of the world. 

12. Endcliffe Park and Cemetery

West Sheffield has two other notable green spaces, Endcliffe Park, opened in 1887, and Sheffield General Cemetery. The latter is a cemetery created in 1836 and closed to burials in 1978. Today it forms a very picturesque landscaped garden, with old graves almost buried under the weeds. Some funerary monuments are quite impressive, and the cemetery includes a few local figures, including the Bassett family's graves, founder of Bassett's confectionery. The street Ecclesall Road, which connects Endcliffe downtown and bordering the Botanical Gardens and the cemetery, is a lively thoroughfare, which includes many bars, restaurants, and shops.