Kelham Island: "I walked the streets of Sheffield's coolest neighbourhood gaining global attention"

Sheffield’s Kelham Island has received international recognition over recent years as an area on the up with great history, industry and people.

I spent the best part of an hour slowly walking through the area, after visiting one of the area’s newest breweries, chatting with locals and visitors about what makes it so great.

“Kelham is the place to come to avoid children”, I was told by Eleanor Betts, who was in the area with good friend Rhiannon Meade.

“We get to pretend we’re 25”

I spoke to the pair as they were about to cross the Ball Street Bridge towards Neepsend. It is a completely pedestrianised area, completed with potted shrubs and benches to sit and enjoy the sounds and sights of the River Don underneath.

“We get to pretend we’re 25,” Rhiannon added. “There’s cocktails and good food and lots of independent places as well. You don’t see any chains.”

This is exactly what Kelham has become known for in recent years. Restaurants like Domo and Juke & Loe (which has unfortunately now closed) helped boost this new image for the area, alongside the abundance of bars and breweries.

These factors are also exactly what earned the area a spot on a recent Daily Telegraph list of the 15 coolest neighbourhoods in the UK. JÖRO and The Kelham Island Brewery both earned special mentions as the top places to eat and drink.

Though I think one of the easiest things to forget about this neighbourhood is that it is indeed a neighbourhood. There are loads of new build houses and repurposed historic buildings where people live.

A young woman named Elle Moss was sat on one of those Ball Street Bridge benches as I was crossing. She lived just around the corner and was enjoying some time outside in her local community.

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‘It’s home, but not forever’

“I like that it’s a small community like a little family,” she told me. “There’s lots of pubs and everyone knows your name. It feels like home.”

Yet, whilst it does feel like home, Elle admits she doesn’t think Kelham Island is forever. It’s a good place to start and begin your adult life and experience independence, but eventually she’d be looking to move elsewhere.

If you wanted more evidence on Kelham’s strong potential for young adults, just look to the house prices. Whilst £136,500 isn’t realistically cheap, the area of Cathedral and Kelham is lower than the city’s average and the 14th cheapest place to live in Sheffield.

Finding a property is another thing, a quick search on Rightmove returns just 49 results of properties listed in the area. And prices are going up - with the top result being a brand new, four bedroom townhouse with a price tag of just under £500,000.

Despite the fanfare about the bars, pubs and breweries in the area. That isn’t all Kelham has to offer.

There are certainly leafier parts of Sheffield, but walking next to the River Don from the Ball Street Bridge was a pleasant walk, with green shrubs to my right and the water to my left.

The path brought me out to the bright, sunny square behind SALT and the Green Lane Works, which is dotted with trees within the urban residential environment.

“There is a lovely community for independents”

In the end, I found my way to the Kelham Deli - an independent shop I hadn’t heard of before, which was tucked away behind the containers housing JÖRO.

Emma Welsh was behind the counter and told me I was a little behind the daily lunch rush, but there were still a few of their incredible looking sandwiches left - I opted for ‘The Traditional’ which was filled with beef and all sorts of good stuff.

“There is a nice community feel here,” Emma told me. “Lots of local businesses and you can tell there is a lovely community for independents like us.”

It’s clear that for residents in Kelham, it is so much more than bars and booze. It’s a safe haven for independent businesses, where chains don’t seem to get a look in and residents don’t really want them to.

So whilst I think it is fair to say Kelham Island is absolutely Sheffield’s “coolest neighbourhood”, we ought to give it more credit beyond the booze and bar scene, because it sure as hell deserves it.