From the archive: Before the Town Hall

Pedestrians then as well...

The photographer is standing at the bottom of Leopold Street looking across to the Town Hall location in 1892. The site had already been purchased, and work had begun on the new building - which has an 1894 datestone at the rear and was officially opened by Queen Victoria in 1897. To the right is the gloomy edifice of the former St Paul’s Church which stood on the site of the Peace Gardens, and was demolished in 1937. In the centre of frame is the monolith erected for Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887 - and which was moved to Endcliffe Park by 1905, where it still remains (mostly) intact standing alongside Rustlings Road. Within a decade electric trams were passing serenely through this view, and not long after that motor traffic too - now the scene is mostly pedestrian again, so something at least has turned full circle.