On Friday 10th May, the African & District Caribbean Community Association (SADACCA) women’s group got an opportunity to look back in time hundreds of years to when Sheffield had a Castle!
The historic Sheffield Castle now being excavated by archeololgists, had been buried for decades by the recently demolished Castle Market buildings.
The Site has had many uses over the centuries and archeologists from Wessex Archeology were on hand to explain the dig to the SADACCA women’s group.
The SADACCA Women’s group have had a bit of history with Wessex Archeology. In 2022 SEM was awarded a Government Green Recovery Challenge Fund (GRCF) grant. As part of this funding initiative, Wessex Archeology was invited by SEM to give a presentation of their work to the SADACCA Women’s group.
This event ignited the imaginations of the group and two years later the SADACCA women (17 of them in total) became the first community group to be taken on tour of the site led by Natasha and Ashley from Wessex Archeology.
Below are some of the comments from the women:
“When we were on top of the market we never knew what was underneath what it looked like until today so it’s a really great experience to see something like this.”
“It’s a bit emotional when you think we are actually walking where the castle used to be and all the interesting finds and history underneath us, it’s really fascinating I just hope and pray that we will still be around to see the new park”
“look what down there while we were doing our shopping we didn’t know all these things were down there, interesting, very very interesting”
“I would like to come back again to see how far they have gone”
“As teenagers we used to meet on the gallery (overlooking the market) and just spend all afternoon there.
Ashley from Wessex Archeology said;
“we really needed to engage people that have shopped here … so it’s fantastic to have you along”
The site is being excavated by Wessex Archeology and Univeristy of Sheffield. The Castle site is the centrepiece of a city centre regeneration project led by Sheffield City Council.