THE SHEFFIELD GUIDE TO KELHAM ISLAND: The best of history, pubs, bars, restaurants, events and more!

by Panzer
Sheffield's Kelham Island is the biggest up and coming area in the UK. It has got lots
of your traditional breweries and pubs but it has also got lots of new bars and restaurants
opening up all the time. So where should you go and what should you do whilst you're in
Kelham Island? Let's find out. My name is James and this is The Sheffield Guide.
Just half a mile north of Sheffield City Centre, Kelham Island is an area that has seen significant
change, from an industrial heartland to the best urban neighbourhood in the UK.
Although people refer to it as Kelham Island, the Kelham Island bit of the area is actually
just this little islandy bit in the middle that surrounds the Kelham Island Museum. What
happened was, they diverted the river Don around this little passage surrounding the
factories which used to power the water wheels which powered all the factories.
In fact, what is commonly referred to as Kelham Island nowadays is actually the traditional
area of Neepsend and parts of Shalesmoor. So even though the industry isn't here in
this area any more and things have moved on and developed, you can still see a lot of
that past industry in all the factories that still surround here that are being converted
into beautiful flats and venues and pubs and bars and restaurants, you can also come to
somewhere like here the Kelham Island Museum with this beautiful big bessemer behind me
where you can see a real glimpse into the past.
One thing the area is known for is its unparalleled real ale scene, earning the nickname of the
‘Valley of Beer’. In fact, Sheffield has nearly five times the amount of breweries
as Greater London. Big brands such as Stones and Bass have long since left Kelham Island,
but in their place many different independent brewers have emerged.
The Fat Cat is probably the most important pub in Kelham Island, it is the one that started
the whole real ale trend. Back in the eighties this was a real run down area and all across
Sheffield all the pubs were run by your industrial mass-produced breweries like Stones and Wards
and Tetleys. A couple of people came and they bought The Fat Cat which used to be known
as The Alma, and they changed it into a free house where they could essentially curate
the best of beers from around the world. Even as this area was deprived and it was a bit
of a no-go area in some respects, lots of people used to come to this area just for
the beer in The Fat Cat. Now as they grew through the nineties it expanded and they
started to make their own beer and created the Kelham Island Brewery, which is still
going today and it is the longest running brewery in Sheffield now.
If real ale and craft beers are your thing, then Kelham Island is for you with arguably
the best pub crawls in the country, full of award winning pubs. Many people like to start
out at the amusingly named Bar Stewards micropub on Shalesmoor. Right across the road from
that is the excellent Shakespeares with its massive menu of hand-pull drinks. It is then
just a short walk across to the extremely popular, 2018 Sheffield Campaign for Real
Ale pub of the year, the Kelham Island Tavern. This amazing pub is the only venue to have
won CAMRA’s national Pub of the Year award in two consecutive years.
If you’re arriving to the area on the Supertram, the conveniently placed Shalesmoor stop sits