Kelham Island Museum

Kelham Island Museum stands on a man-made island beside the River Don in central Sheffield. The island was created in the 12th century when a mill race was built to power a corn mill. It was later named after Kellam Homer, the Town Armourer, who had a grinding workshop there in 1637. For centuries the land remained meadow, until John Crowley’s Iron Foundry opened on the site in 1829. The foundry gave way to a power station in 1899, which supplied electricity for the city’s trams until the 1930s. The present museum occupies the old power station and Russell Works, built by Messers Wheatman and Smith. The museum is worth visiting for its collection of industrial relics and working machinery. Its centrepiece is a Bessemer Converter, the largest surviving example in England, which won an Engineering Heritage Award in 2004. The museum also runs demonstrations of the 1905 River Don Engine, a 12,000 horsepower steam engine that once powered an armour plate mill and later rolled steel for nuclear reactors. Visitors can see the prototype Sheffield-Simplex car and the Benjamin Huntsman Clock, the first object made from crucible cast steel. The workshop of Stan Shaw, a little mester who demonstrated knife making until 2021, is also on display. Inside the museum, reconstructed little mesters’ workshops show how Sheffield’s cutlers once worked. The Hawley Gallery and Crucible Shop occupy Russell Works, offering further exhibits and a shop. The Enid Hattersley Gallery displays historic photographs and artworks, including pieces damaged in the 2007 flood. The site is now protected by new flood defences, and the museum continues to welcome school tours and public demonstrations.