Leopold Square - A Snooker WAG Paradise February 19, 2009

Leopold square is a missed opportunity. The planners fail to see that despite its central location between City Hall, West Street and the main shopping area, it’s quite difficult to find the entrance. This creates two problems.  The square is easier to walk around than walk through; bad news for the businesses inside. It also means that rather than giving a feeling of sanctuary, its atmosphere is more officious and secluded. This is perhaps due in part to its past; Leopold Square is the former playground  of the Sheffield boys school - so it has a history of excluding those less able to afford an education, or in the square today, the choice of a meal in one of eight overpriced chain restaurants.

When I did manage to find the entrance, I descended the steps from West Street. Unfortunately the stairs were the wrong depth, forcing me to gallop into the courtyard rather inelegantly. (Of course the guests at the luxury Leopold hotel will enter from the opposite end). Upon arriving in the square I was further underwhelmed. This being Sheffield means that there must be a fountain (I often get the feeling that the majority of town planners were trained using SimCity, we await the opening of the Llama park). The fountain, though achieving its role of blocking out some of the exterior noise is bizarrely positioned at one end, meaning the square lacks a central focal point and its vertical prison bar jets of water create a physical barrier between the higher priced restaurants such as Sylvesters and Platillos and the better known high street brands Strada and Zizzi. The lack of opportunity to interact with the fountain unless you’re disabled (its main role is to conceal the mobility ramp) makes it less of a feature than it otherwise could have been.

 Planit, Leopold square’s architects have nonetheless done a good job in attempting to preserve the history of the site, the use of traditional stone surfaces and the trees are a nice touch. The arches create a feeling of grandeur difficult to find elsewhere in Sheffield, and its water feature, despite being poorly positioned is simply better designed than the despairing grey “cutting edge” sculpture by the railway station or the cheap and cheerful perspex fountains outside John Lewis. The firm also consulted the school’s old boys, asking them for memories. These have been transformed into bronze benches, with vaguely humorous inscriptions such as “Stinko, open the window”. This would have created a good point of interest if it weren’t for the fact that the benches surrounding are placed above a kerb. Perhaps this an attempt to recreate schoolboy’s legs dangling awkwardly from benches in the playground.

 What may have amused the last lot of teenagers to attend the school would have been  the planning application to open a branch of Hooters, the successful chain of restaurants based on the premise that men would prefer to be served by women with big tits and small t-shirts. The application was declined, I suppose, because it didn’t really match the atmosphere of the complex. None of the bench inscriptions read, “look at Miss. Smiths boobies jiggle as she walks down the corridor.” I’m sure Hooters will be able to find a warehouse in a less up and coming area in the near future.

The site’s main problem, it must be said, are its current occupants. A lot of southerners who live here have been saying “it’s about time Sheffield had a Wagamama (noodle bar)” but, surely the creation of an area that aims to be a “refuge for city dwellers and workers to escape from the cut and thrust of urban life” shouldn’t be presented with a group of high street restaurants. I’m not saying that I want to be freed of my bourgeois signifiers, but perhaps one restaurant whose name I didn’t recognise would be nice. This is a supposedly “mixed use” complex which presents the visitor with a choice of eight places to eat dinner. People therefore do not stay in the area as they would in Sheffield’s West One, which is a modern  mix of shops, bars and restaurants, which despite the presence of Vodka Revolution makes it a much more fulfilling area. It doesn’t even contain a fully dedicated bar, though this is understandable in an area which is attempting to remain quiet or respectable (though perhaps the security guard I spoke to was going a bit far when saying he believed those who drop cigarette butts when walking through should be fined £75). To enjoy the area in its fullest for an evening I might suggest a dessert crawl – it’s a bit like tapas but involves visiting all the restaurants in one complex and ends in vomiting a mixture of tiramisu, summer fruit pudding, chocolate gateaux, raspberry cheese cake and a selection of Italian cheeses into the fountain, turning it a delicious chocolatey colour. Perhaps its better that it’s off to one side.