page_title: J. L. Womersley
section_title: Sheffield: flood the valleys, plant the tops
hierarchical_section_title: J. L. Womersley / Sheffield: flood the valleys, plant the tops
caption_attribution_description: English: Gleadless Estate Architecture and Town Planning
context_page_description: J. Lewis Womersley CBE, FRIBA, FRTPI, Hon. LL.D and MA was a British architect and town planner best known for his work as City Architect for Sheffield, leading the team that created the Gleadless Valley, Hyde Park and Park Hill estates. Womersley’s passion was "incorporating buildings, roads, paths, play-grounds, schools and superb landscaping as the complete architectural environment."
context_section_description: Womersley had already begun to make his mark in Sheffield, designing the now Grade II listed building, High Storrs School, Ecclesall, with WG Davies in 1933. The post-war 1952 Development Plan identified 20, 000 unfit houses, with a margin for 15, 000, in a plan to relieve overcrowding in heavily industrial areas of Sheffield. The plan estimated that 2, 700 acres would be required to house the population, although there were only 2400 acres available. The inhabitants of the slums were removed to council estates on Hallamshire, with the impact upon the tenants of costlier rents and longer distances for them to travel to work. It became apparent, following a failed application for the city boundaries to be extended, that the pre-war density of population would need to be addressed. The main challenges were the need for slum clearance, a shortage of land on which to house the population and the immobility of heavy industry. In order to re-house most people near to their original homes with adequate space in an attractive environment, use had to be made of land that was considered too steep for development using a combination of high and low rise buildings. 
  In 1953 Lewis Womersley was chosen to solve this problem from 40 competitors for the post of City Architect of Sheffield. Laying out his vision, Womersley made the commitment that: 
   If we are to design cities and not merely housing we must go beyond the individual dwelling and portray the grand design. 
  He led Sheffield Council leaders on visits to sites across Europe, to share his vision of "an audacious programme of building around the city." What he was about to achieve in one decade was the first benign urban transformation on a scale of a city of over half a million people that we had ever seen in Britain.
  Womersley was an advocate of high rise living and it was seen as a solution to slum clearance, being raised at two major RIBA symposia in 1955 and 1957, where he suggested that 50% of the population wished to inhabit high-rise accommodation.
  Womersley established an imaginative and highly enthusiastic team, including Ivor Smith and Jack Lynn, committed to creating the good quality accommodation for people to live in. The city’s topology, three main land masses containing steep escarpment, rolling plateau and a series of ridges, presented a challenge but allowed many of them to be visually related; "with the hilltop architectural compositions producing something of the fascination of the Italian hill towns" that had inspired Womersley in the 1930s.  The city centre, which, up until then had been neglected, with all council resources directed towards housing, was to be redeveloped under Womersley’s department, including the Hole in the Road and the Castle Market, designed by Andrew Derbyshire with J. Stuart Mackie. The Castle Market was intended to form the cornerstone of a pedestrianised city centre which was as pioneering as Park Hill. Unfortunately it never progressed and the market was demolished in 2015. 
  
  The Greenhill site, Beauchief and Greenhill, presented an opportunity to house 10, 000 people, but in order to do so, it had to be drained, with the water pumped back into the city system. Utilising the Radburn style hedgerows and footpaths, in accordance with his beliefs, to provide separation of pedestrian from traffic, the 70 person per acre density was achieved using three thirteen-storey towers for child-free domiciles; four-storey maisonettes for small families; and two-storey terraces with corner flats for larger families. 
   
  Gleadless Valley was ear marked to house 17, 000 people but, with slopes averaging 1 in 8, the landscape presented a challenge that was transformed into an advantage and today remains the most spectacular of his many estates.  Writing in The Builder in 1963, Womersley noted:
   One great advantage that can often be obtained is a splendid view. By arranging for dwellings to be terraced up the hillside with living rooms on the upper floors, a view can be obtained over the roofs of the houses below. Specially designed patio houses in 
caption: Gleadless Estate, Sheffield
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