Yorkshire architecture firm celebrates 180th anniversary

The city’s elders were determined to ensure that the victims were never forgotten, so they hired Matthew Ellison Hadfield to create a towering memorial. Today, Mr Hadfield’s monument to the 402 citizens of Sheffield who lost their lives in the epidemic stands as a stark reminder of a time when life was more precarious than it is today.

It wasn’t the only the thing Mr Hadfield created that has stood the test of time. The Sheffield-based architecture firm he founded, Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson, is marking its 180th anniversary. The practice became a limited company in 2008 after 174 years trading as a partnership and now includes architects, planners, interior designers and structural engineers. Based in two buildings on Broomgrove Road, HCD employs 80 staff, who work on a range of high profile architectural and engineering projects throughout the UK and in Europe.

David Peel, the chairman of HCD, which has a turnover of around £3.9m, said: “We are very proud of our heritage in what is traditionally a very volatile business sector. One hundred and eighty years in business is a major milestone by anybody’s standards and bears testament to our founding partner’s principles of good design, management and very high standards of service delivery. As a business we believe in developing long term relationships with our clients and our staff, many of whom have been with us for more than 25 years.”