Have you seen Park Hill’s missing foundation stone?

On 25 April 1958, the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Dame Evelyn Sharp, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and a bus full of local councillors and dignitaries arrived at the partially constructed Park Hill Estate to lay the foundation stone.

It was located on the floor outside The Pavements shopping centre, one of the first parts of the estate to be occupied after construction started in 1957.

The event was captured on film, which has recently been digitised and published online by the Yorkshire Film Archive.

Hundreds of Park Hill residents will have walked over the commemorative stone on their way to and from the shopping area, that included a hairdresser, butcher, baker, newsagents, shoe shop, a branch of the Co-op, and the Earl George pub.

Yorkshire Film Archive / North East Film Archive

Fast-forward to 2007, when Urban Splash demolished The Pavements to make way for the regeneration of Park Hill. They carefully removed the foundation stone and stored it on site, intending to incorporate it into the landscape of the restored estate.

At some point after this, the foundation stone disappeared and hasn't been seen since. We want to locate it and return it to Park Hill.

It’s made up of two dark stone panels, each measuring approximately one and a half meters by sixty centimetres and has a plan of the estate cut into the stone.

If you have any information about its current location, please email hello@friendsofparkhill.org or use the contact form on our website.