The Egg Box Town Hall extension.

Photo by neuroticcamel from Sheffield, England (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I'll admit it. I liked the Egg Box. Plenty of people hated it but I refuse to hate any building that could possess such elements of chunky sticky-inness and sticky outness.

Not only that but it'll always hold a special place in my heart as the first building in Sheffield whose creation and then death I witnessed. Somehow, experiencing the entire lifespan of a building gives you a whole new view of life and the passage of time.

Of course, its great claim to fame was that, in Barry Hines' TV movie Threads, it was the location of the bunker from which Sheffield City Council would run the city in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Given that the council often struggle to run the city when there's not been a nuclear holocaust, perhaps it was a little optimistic to think they could run the place when there was one.

Well, that's all fine and dandy but, for me, its other claim to fame is that, in the 1970s, there was an amusement arcade in Blackpool that had a roof like an egg carton - and thus the two buildings felt like spiritual brothers. That building had a dalek you could sit inside and pretend to kill people with.

Sadly, Sheffield's building lacked such a thing.

No wonder it wasn't popular.

Sheffield's Town Hall TARDIS.

Photo by David Rogers [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

What kind of fool am I to have got so far into this blog without ever having once mentioned the most important structure in the history of Sheffield?

I am, of course, referring to Sheffield's TARDIS, parked just outside the Town Hall; no doubt so the Doctor can rush into the building and sort out the council, once and for all, with his sonic screwdriver.

The door's sometimes left open, meaning you can see the interior. Rather disappointingly, it's not bigger on the inside, not does it have a control console. Clearly that must be a trick the Doctor's pulled to lure his enemies into a false sense of security.

Unlike that one on TV, Sheffield's TARDIS is made of concrete. Just what you need for keeping out daleks. Or, as they're known in Sheffield, Dee Dah Leks.

Old Town Hall, Waingate.

Photo © Copyright Stanley Walker and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

To my ever-lasting shame, all through my childhood I knew this building only as, "That place with the drinking fountain on the side." Sadly, even then, one was warned not to use that fountain, as it wasn't hygienic.

When I was a kid, it was used as a courthouse but it was originally built in 1807-08 as Sheffield's town hall, before being superseded in the 1890s by its much larger replacement on Surrey Street.

As far as I'm aware, it's currently abandoned and growing increasingly derelict, which seems a scandal for such an historic building. One can only hope that a good use can be found for it at some point.