If you catch a train to Sheffield and walk two minutes up the road to The Leadmill, you’ll find an extensive temple to the age-old music culture that has echoed throughout its walls. The Leadmill Archives, currently showing on a weekly basis, are a heartfelt tribute to the rich history of one of the nation’s most loved venues, showing old signed gig set lists, posters and merchandise.
This prolific past dates back to 1980, when the Leadmill first opened as a Community Centre in the former flour mill to offer a cultural landscape for the creatives of the city. It was a Sheffield steel slam against Margaret Thatcher’s iron grip. The venue turned its focus to young people in the early 80s, by hosting recreational activities to encourage arts education in response to the high rates of unemployment as a consequence of the steelworks closures, and when the venue received its alcohol license in 1982, it began to have an intrinsic role in Sheffield’s nightlife. Now, it has blossomed into an icon for music lovers and concert goers across the UK, becoming home to a wide spectrum of vibrant club nights and live music. The Leadmill stage has seen gigs performed by legends such as Pulp, Manic Street Preachers and The Killers, and was witness and a key part to the rise of Arctic Monkeys.
Since March of 2022, The Leadmill has been under threat after landlords, the Electric Group, led by CEO Dominic Madden served an eviction notice, with effect a year after, intent on refurbishing the venue and relaunching it as part of the Electric Group but under a different name, “Electric Sheffield.” This caused uproar within the wider community and amongst musicians, who spoke out against the closure and joined the campaign to save The Leadmill. Fans were encouraged to sign the petition to suspend section 25 of the Landlord and Tenant Act that permits landlords to end a tenancy which would protect Grassroots Music Venues from the same demise. This current standing section means that landlords can easily evict tenants of prospering venues in order to capitalise on their already established success.
Dominic Madden’s plan to tear apart the hard work and effort that has gone into The Leadmill and “Frankenstein” it into another puppet for the Electric Group goes to show how corporate chains are merely soulless carbon copies of eachother, hellbent on destroying independent scenes within different industries. It is heartbreaking to see such an important piece of history be turned inside out as part of another money-making scheme. Venues such as The Leadmill are slowly becoming lost to us, and we must protect them. They expose us to up and coming artists, in a world of a fastly rising abundance of more filtered, hand picked music. The Leadmill’s closure encompasses the first toll of a death knell for local artistic individuality, a warning to us that if the men in suits can be successful in closing such an important piece of Sheffield history, then they could easily come for other smaller venues.
To lose The Leadmill would be to lose one of Sheffield’s greatest cultural assets. Its heartfelt charm is proud to form a part of the city’s heritage and is adored and supported by the community around it.The Leadmill forms part of the city’s heartbeat which uplifts Sheffield and its people.
Words by Victoria Ruck
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