Kellam House, Neepsend Lane

Image: © David Lally Taken: 12 May 2009

This building, now apartments, was built by Sir Stuart Goodwin as the Head Office of The Neepsend Steel and Tool Corporation. Sir Stuart was a well known steel magnate in Sheffield and a major benefactor to many local institutions. He died in 1968 and a few years after the group was renamed as just Neepsend (later Neepsend PLC) with a new trendy logo. At its height the corporation probably employed somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand across about twenty companies, most if not all in the Sheffield area. The group was decimated in the recession of 1980-1982 with only Ferro Alloys and Metals Ltd http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1125754 remaining in profit to keep the group afloat. It emerged in 1983 with five companies that I can remember with, probably, about 1,000 employees. Later in that decade the group expanded into other non-steel related fields with the purchase of light engineering companies in fields such as plastics and printing machinery. Neepsend was bought in 1998 by United Industries a similar-sized group of engineering companies based around a core of spring manufacturers in the West Midlands. United Industries “evaporated” sometime in the early 2000s The most prominent landmark to Sir Stuart is probably the 1960s’ extension to Sheffield Cathedral, seen to good effect here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1291889. The Goodwin Fountain, once a well-known Sheffield landmark at the junction of Fargate, Pinstone Street, Leopold Street, Surrey Street and Barkers Pool has long-gone http://www.francisfrith.com/sheffield/sheffield-the-goodwin-fountain-c1965_s108173 and has had a big wheel put there http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1442987.

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