Sheffield has an enviable reputation for manufacturing quality, and as a global ‘steel city’, the home of major innovations in steel manufacture and processing. Furthermore, ‘Sheffield plate’ and Sheffield cutlery have been marques of the best in the world. Yet the story of Sheffield industry is much more than simply a catalogue of the rise of steel manufacturing and processing. One of the first major industries was located to the north of Sheffield at Wharncliffe Crags (Quern-cliff Crags), the site of one of the Roman Empire’s largest grindstone or quern-stone manufacturing sites. Like later and better known industrial ventures, the querns were made here because the quarried stone was the best and most suitable that could be found. In the wake of steel, or alongside it, came glass making, brewing, refractory products, power generation, joinery and more. With a wealth of illustrations and an accessible style, Ian D. Rotherham offers a fascinating overview of one of Britain’s great industrial centres.

Ian D. Rotherham is Emeritus Professor at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University. An environmental campaigner, he is an international authority on cultural and historical aspects of landscapes and ecology, and author or editor of over fifty books and more than five hundred academic papers. He writes for numerous newspapers and magazines and has broadcast with numerous BBC programmes and other media including Panorama, Autumnwatch, and Horizon.