Ringing in changes through popular Kelham market

“For many people, this is the start of their Christmas,” said pinafored marketing coordinator Gemma Holden. “This is the 27th annual Kelham Island Victorian Christmas Market, and for us, this is our biggest event of the year.”

Kelham Island Museum is actually on Kelham Island, noted Gemma, unlike most of the cafes, pubs and eateries now proliferating around the museum in the UK’s best neighbourhood of 2019 (according to the UK’s Academy of Urbanism).

Gemma has worked at the museum for seven years, and even over that short time she’s seen Kelham change around her.

“They were just starting to sell the flats behind us when I started, but now there’s something new opening nearly every week. It’s crazy, but it’s great!”

In total 10,000 people visited the two day market last weekend, which raises funds to support the museum’s aim to preserve Sheffield’s industrial history and tell both Sheffielders and the wider world about the city’s steel and engineering heritage.

“Many of the people who came last weekend won’t have been to the museum before, but now they have been, we hope they will come back,” said Gemma.

As always, the market included local craftspeople and food sellers (nearly all from Sheffield and South Yorkshire, said Gemma) along with a fairground, Santa’s Grotto and musical entertainment from local musicians and singers. More than twenty museum staff showed off their Victorian wardrobes for the day, along with over a dozen volunteers, including students from both city universities. Friends groups from Manor Lodge and Portland Works were also represented, showing how Sheffielders across the city are keen to take pride in the city’s heritage.

“We want to look at different ways of interpreting the collections now,” said Gemma, adding that as families and young professionals move into the apartments around the museum, “we want to engage with those new audiences.”

The No Bounds underground club culture festival in October, for example, brought visitors from all over the UK to celebrate new versions of the city’s electronic music pioneers of the 80s and 90s. And after the museum hosted installations from the Material Voice artist’s collective in September, the new exhibition ‘pod’ will host a new ‘spoken word' exhibition in January, said Gemma.

A month ago, however, Gemma and team were on full flood alert, like everyone alongside the river Don in central Sheffield.

“We had to put our flood plan into action, so everyone came in on that evening, and we had to move the paintings, electric equipment and other valuable things upstairs,” said Gemma. “We were watching the water levels and it was touch and go, but in the end the investment made by the council and the Environment Agency worked. We were very relieved!”

The museum was less lucky in 2007, where the whole site was flooded, losing many displays and objects. After being closed for almost two years, the museum reopened and won a Heritage Lottery Grant to improve the building housing the huge River Don Engine - which was working for the visitors last weekend.

The old buildings have survived their 21st century challenges, and the museum is now a site for weddings and business events, and is adapting to the life of modern Kelham quite well, with regular beer and gin festivals, and a summer vintage fair which attracts discerning clothing historians of all kinds: the museum is particularly popular with steampunks, Gemma noted.

“It’s Victorian, and there’s steam - what’s not to like if you’re a steampunk?”

One of the next steps is to bring the museum’s telling of Sheffield’s story up to date, said Gemma, with exhibitions relating to modern industries in the city.

“We want to remind people about the modern steel industry, and the things still happening here. Some people think that industry has gone. So there’s more to come here .”

See www.simt.co.uk/kelham-island-museum