Jurys Inn Sheffield

Like most of northern England’s cities, Sheffield has grabbed the opportunities presented by urban renewal with both hands and has worked hard to reinvent itself as something other than the city famous for steel and snooker. The steel industry is long since gone – although the ‘Sheffield Steel’ stamp on locally made cutlery has quite the touch of boutique class about it – and snooker is only worth talking about for a couple of weeks a year, when Sheffield plays host to the still immensely popular World Championships in late March and early April.

There are smart hotels and interesting galleries all over the town centre (which has been cleaned up and made rather attractive), some excellent restaurants and, inevitably, enough good bars to justify a rampant nightlife for the thousands of young people attending university here. Indeed, the real spark for the city’s rebirth was lit by a younger generation, both home-grown and imported: theirs is the vision that is leading the city’s transformation, and in their spare time they’re indulging in Sheffield’s long-standing reputation as a top spot for music.

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