ABSTRACT
During the last decade Sheffield lost half its manufacturing employment but the manufacturing sector still employs about 60,000 workers or one-quarter of the city’s employed population. The industrial landscape of Sheffield provides striking evidence of both surviving industries and the re-use of former industrial sites. The manufacturing activities of this city of over half-a-million people are located mainly along the valleys of the River Don and the River Sheaf. The activities in the River Don Valley are the most important and a distinction can be drawn between the Upper Don (north-west of the city centre) and the Lower Don (north-east of the city centre). The field excursion was confined to the Don valley industrial area and was designed to show participants the key features of the contemporary manufacturing economy and the new land uses emerging on former industrial sites.
