Sheffield is full of street artwork, and nowhere is that more immediately visible to someone walking down the street than by simply looking up and around at the many statues, murals and monuments that adorn the Steel City’s walls, streets and open spaces. From abstract waypoint markers around Meadowhall to the murals around the city centre parks, you can find art almost everywhere.
The website Street Art Sheffield lists around 200 pieces of street art around just the city centre, which includes murals which have since been replaced, or added to. Here are some of my favourite pieces of street art in the city, and how you can find them.
Water Wildlife Mural in Pounds Park by Peachzzz
This is the most recent addition of my list to the Steel City landscape, having been completed last summer as part of a wider redevelopment of Pounds Park from a former car park into an open space and playground.
Found just off of Rockingham Street, near to the Cambridge Street Collective food hall, this incredible mural was designed and created by Hallam graduate Peachzz, to celebrate the water wildlife of the Steel City. Standing over 25 metres tall, the Kingfisher and Heron, watch over the city centre with beautiful use of colour.
Steelworker Mural
This brick-based mural turns 40 next year, and was created at the corner of Angel Street and Castle Street, not far from the Castlegate redevelopment project and Sheffield Magistrates Court.
To create the imposing work, Paul Waplington essentially created a mosaic of 30,000 bricks to depict a traditional steelworker, representing the craft and industry that had been the lifeblood of the city for generations.
The Snog by Pete McKee
This piece of art was initially created on the side of Fagan’s pub on Broad Street, near to the Diamond, in 2013 by the locally famous artist Pete McKee, whose other local works include ‘Dog Biscuits’. It shows an elderly couple, Frank and Joy, embracing and has been a popular spot for photographs ever since it was first created.
There was some worry in 2024 when the original mural disappeared from the side of the pub, however this was only temporary as the wall on which it had been painted needed re-rendering, and the mural has since been re-painted in a more vibrant colour palette compared to before, with my personal favourite change being making Joy’s jumper being purple.
The ‘I Love You’ Bridge
The long history behind this poignant artwork goes back to 2001, when Jason Lowe proposed to Clare Middleton by painting the side of one of Park Hill’s bridges with the message ‘CLARE MIDDLETON, I LOVE YOU, WILL U MARRY ME’. As is the case now, the brutalist architecture could be seen from the other side of the city centre so Jason planned to show Clare after a date at the nearby cinema.
Over the next few years, with the decaying flats receiving a listed status from English Heritage, plans were made to redevelop the buildings and bring them into the modern day, with the images of Jason’s proposal controversially used in marketing material across the buildings.
The original graffiti on the building, which had been illuminated since it’s original painting two decades before, was removed in February 2021 for structural safety reasons, but has since been replaced on the bridge. It still shines above the city as a reminder of the power of human emotion and vulnerability in the face of adversity.
