Exchange Gateway Sheffield

Commissioned by Friends of Sheffield City Centre

2026

At one time, Exchange Gateway was a narrow street lined with multi-occupancy shops, houses, workshops and offices. Looking through an old directory gives a glimpse into the range of businesses that once occupied the street, including small tool manufacturers, cutlery makers, picture framers and cabinet makers. It was also home to the Sheffield Free Press, a newspaper founded in 1850 as “a new impartial unsectarian journal”, although it only ran for seven years before ending publication.

These days, Exchange Gateway is easily overlooked, with many people seeing it simply as a slightly rough and forgotten alleyway rather than a piece of Sheffield’s history. It’s easy to walk straight past without giving much thought to what was once happening along this narrow street.

Hopefully, we’ve been able to inject a bit of life and colour back into this long-forgotten corner of Sheffield city centre

More history on Exchange Gateway can be found here