Banner's department store, Attercliffe.

By Warofdreams (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

When I was growing up, I knew nothing of the existence of Banner's department store. For that matter, I knew nothing of Attercliffe itself. My only knowledge of the area was that it existed and, despite its name, it didn't have a cliff.

Sadly, all these years later, I still know little of Banners, but I have at least seen it in the flesh now. What I do know is the place ceased to trade as a department store in 1980 and had the first escalators in Sheffield. It also had a tube system for delivering goods to the customers.

It's such a lovely, neat, building that it seems a shame they can't put it on castors and move it to the city centre where it could again be properly utilised for its original purpose and no longer feel so strangely out of place.

Sheffield University Arts Tower.

Photo  © Copyright Terry Robinson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Hooray, it's that building that looks just like that one in New York whose name I can never remember.

I don't know if it still is but, at one point, it was the tallest university building in the country and is legendary for its Paternoster lifts, designed to satisfy the needs of those who've always wanted that Dumbwaiter experience.

Between 1965 and 2010, it was Sheffield's tallest building and is still the city's second tallest.

Norton Water Tower.

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

Aw, just look at it. It's like the keep at Conisbrough Castle would be if the Plantagenets had ever heard of Brutalism. You could see it from the end of our road when I was little. Then again, you can see it from the end of plenty of roads, as it's up on a hill near the outskirts of town.

Back in the good old days, you used to be able to go up it and use its viewing platform, and I once had the pleasure of doing just that. Sadly, some decades ago, the practice was stopped. According to an interview I once heard on Radio Sheffield, that was because people kept trying to jump off it. To be honest, there's so many mobile phone dishes on it now that you'd probably be reluctant to go up it in case your brain got fried by microwaves.

Still, it'd be great to go up it again as an adult and see just what the view's like from the side that faces away from Sheffield.