page_title: Brutalism in Sheffield
section_title: Hyde Park
hierarchical_section_title: Brutalism in Sheffield / Notable existing developments / Hyde Park
caption_attribution_description: English: Hyde Park Flats in Sheffield during the 1991 Universiade
context_page_description: The 1950s and 1960s saw the construction of numerous brutalist apartment blocks in Sheffield, England. Sheffield City Council had been clearing inner-city residential slums since the early 1900s. Prior to the 1950s these slums were replaced with low-rise council housing, mostly constructed in new estates on the edge of the city. By the mid-1950s the establishment of a green belt had led to a shortage of available land on the edges of the city, whilst the government increased subsidies for the construction of high-rise apartment towers on former slum land, so the council began to construct high-rise inner city estates, adopting modernist designs and industrialised construction techniques, culminating in the construction of the award-winning Gleadless Valley and Park Hill estates.
context_section_description: The Hyde Park flats, also known during construction as Park Hill (Part Two), were constructed on the site of cleared inner-city slums on the hillside immediately to the east of Sheffield City Centre. The area of slums which previously occupied this area had become one of the most deprived areas of the country by the 1930s, receiving the nickname Little Chicago due to its high rate of violent crime, until they were cleared before the start of World War II.
  Following the success of the nearby Park Hill scheme, Hyde Park was constructed as an even more expansive 'streets in the sky' social housing concept. Plans were approved by the Sheffield County Borough Council's Housing Committee at a meeting on 21 February 1958. The four Hyde Park blocks were designed by city architects J. L. Womersley (also involved in Park Hill and the expansive Gleadless Valley redevelopment), W. L. Clunie and A. V. Smith, and construction commenced in 1962 under direct municipal labour. Construction was completed in 1966, and the flats were officially opened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother on 23 June 1966.
  Four blocks of flats were built at Hyde Park, all in a similar streets in the sky style to Park Hill. The largest of the blocks, Block B, consisted of nineteen storeys containing 678 flats, rising to a height of 56 m (184 ft) and becoming the city's third-tallest building upon completion, behind only Sheffield Town Hall and the Arts Tower (which was opened by the Queen Mother earlier the same day as Block B). The remaining three blocks – A, C and D – were more modest in height, comparable to those at Park Hill, containing nine, ten and thirteen storeys and 28, 108 and 355 individual dwellings respectively. When also including the low-rise maisonettes that were constructed in the Hyde Park area around the same time, the estate was capable of housing more than 4,600 people in 1,313 residencies.
  Much of the Hyde Park estate fell into deprivation in the 1980s following the collapse of the local steel and coal industries and subsequent economic downturn and population flight from Sheffield. Blocks C and D were refurbished in 1990 in order to be used as the athletes village for the 1991 World Student Games, hosted by Sheffield. Following the conclusion of the games, they returned to use as council housing. The smallest and largest of the Hyde Park blocks, A and B respectively, were both demolished in 1992; they had not seen use during the games. Blocks C and D were subsequently leased out by the council to Places for People and refurbished in a similar manner to the Herdings Twin Towers in the late 1990s, receiving new names in the process – Harold Lambert Court for Block C and Castle Court for Block D. Both blocks were refurbished with predominantly white cladding covering their distinctive concrete structures, with red detailing on Castle Court and green detailing on Harold Lambert Court. The land formerly occupied by Blocks A and B was redeveloped as the Manor Oaks Gardens low-rise detached housing estate in the early 2000s.
caption: Hyde Park flats during the World Student Games in 1991.
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