This city, Sheffield, is known in England as The Steel City. Not only was it the kingdom's biggest producer of heavy steels for industry and construction, it was also famous for the manufacture of steel cutlery. Even today, the city's ice hockey team is known as The Steelers and Sheffield United football club are nicknamed The Blades. Good quality cutlery is still produced here but heavy steel production has almost gone. I could make a whole blogpost about Sheffield's steel industry but I want to write about something else today - Sheffield Castle which existed long before the burgeoning of the steel industry. There are around four thousand old castles in England. Some are in a fine state of repair but many are in ruins. Some are just mounds with moats around them and others, like Sheffield Castle, were razed to the ground leaving little evidence of their existence behind. It was a big and strategically important castle, covering some four acres at the confluence of...
