Feature
On Sheffield’s Kelham Island, restaurants have replaced cutlery works
When I was a teenager, oh, twenty years ago now, a few friends and I would walk all the way from Sheffield town centre to the industrial area of Kelham Island so we could drink in a ‘steelworker’s pub’ called The Fat Cat. At the time, it was the only authentic real ale pub in the city. I don’t know if they served food, we just went there to drink bitter pints of Old Peculiar, but if they did I never saw anyone eat there. Back then there was no other reason to venture to Kelham Island. It was a part of Sheffield that played the songs of the steelworks. The River Don flowed past warehouses and workshops and the air was filled with the sharp scent of metal.
