If it's brutalism you want, move to Sheffield. The Park Hill estate is a renowned concrete behemoth, looming down over the city and located impressively close to the centre.
It was built on one of Sheffield's not-necessarily seven hills. Previously the area had been packed with back-to-back tenements, with residents living in increasingly slum-like conditions, and Sheffield City Council were keen to redevelop. This being the 1950s they played a bold card and went for concrete, strongly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier, and designed a snake-like wall of flats and maisonettes taking advantage of the sloping site. A key concept was the inclusion of "streets in the sky", so that former neighbours on the ground would still be neighbours at elevated level. Initially it proved very popular.
But it didn't last. Maintenance wasn't all it could have been, people didn't always like the neighbours who moved in later, and the council eventually found itself with flats it couldn't rent. Redevelopment opportunities were sorely limited when Park Hill was listed in 1998 - the largest such building in Europe - and eventually plans were made for a part-privatised refurb. But renovation's been running very much on the slow side, already several years behind schedule, and only the main Sheffield-facing block has been completed. But it looks stunning, if that's the kind of thing you're into, which hundreds of new residents evidently are. (more)(more)(more)(more)(more)
A short climb uphill from the back of the station brings you to a gridded wall filled-in with balconies, glass and brightly coloured panels. Look carefully and the tableau animates - a child pushed up against a window, an office worker at a terminal, a leaning bicycle. Businesses installed on the lower levels include a film company, the obligatory bijou cafe and an advertising agency with the necessarily-umlauted name of Über. The Park Hill sales office is here too, should you be interested in moving in. Prices are low enough to make Londoners go "wow that's cheap", whilst simultaneously expensive for Sheffield, because Park Hill is no longer for the lowest in society.
Alas, you can no longer walk around the streets in the sky. The foot of each residential staircase is now fiercely guarded by electronic jiggerypokery, making former public spaces private as well as keeping out unwanted troublemakers. But it is possible to step through to the courtyard beyond, a vast stepped swathe of terraced green, whose lawns are speckled with an astonishing range of autumn fungi. Here the impact of the upgraded concrete wall is at its greatest, and the varying number of storeys in each building more evident, as a long screen of glass and citrus-coloured panels shields the city from view.
Follow the connecting gangways with your eye and you'll see the adjacentblocks have not yet been similarly upgraded. Their walls are unfaced brick, their window frames grubby and the rooms behind empty, indeed by far the largest proportion of Park Hill remains sealed off behind a fence topped with intruder-proof spikes. Some of the least accessible curls will eventually end up as student accommodation, because planning rules are laxer, while other flanks will be spruced up into sleek modernist cells for Sheffield's more aspiring.
While I was making the most of a rare splash of sunshine, a minibus arrived and a teacher led his geography class up to the toppermost mushroomy lawn. "Does anybody know what this place is called?" he said, before launching into a meatier question and answer session debating the evolving purpose of the site. Park Hill remains a talking point 60 years after its construction, once an aspirational escape for thousands, now a sparkily sanitised refuge for a few. If nothing else, at least it's all still here. [12 photos]
I wanted to walk a bit further, into proper residential Sheffield, so continued up Duke Street and City Road between Victorian villas parts of London would be proud of. In the suburbs a hilltop is never too far away, as I discovered when I doubled back and climbed briskly to Sky Edge. This is where Richard Hawley used to walk his dog, and his Mercury-nominated album in 2012 was named after it. From this breezy grassy ridge I could look down over the city centre, spotlit in its valley, with low cloud rolling over the lofty heights of Peak District moorland beyond. Immediately beneath me on the lip of the escarpment were several pigeon lofts, ideally located for a fast return, confirming this as a truly northern panorama.
And then, to walk some more, I took up the offer of the Norfolk Heritage Trail(map). It's named after the Dukes of Norfolk, who owned this hilltop when it was part of a deer park, and the start of the trail is a small Tudor hunting lodge which survives amid a much more modern housing estate. Don't expect to get past the railings unless it's a Sunday. Next the trail weaves down through the city's largest cemetery, then through Norfolk Heritage Park, one of the country's oldest public parks, following a sweeping lime avenue. You don't get to see the real Sheffield while shopping at Meadowhall.
Almost back at Park Hill, on the cusp of a woodland path, I reached the intriguingly-named Cholera Monument. The city was badly hit by the disease in 1832, losing over four hundred residents, including the Master Cutler for that year, John Blake. He got a swish raised tomb in memoriam, whilst the others collectively made do with a slim stone needle topped with a gleaming cross. The benches alongside are now a preferred place of rest for smoking teens and puffing pensioners, looking down over the heart of Sheffield in its gap between the hills. There is much to see down there too.
