The History
George Barnsley and Sons Ltd was founded in 1836 and specialised in forge filing and cutting tools for leather workers and shoe makers. One George Barnsley was Master Cutler in 1883.
George Barnsley and Son is listed in the 1837 Sheffield directory as a file manufacture situated on Wheeldon Street, The 1849 listing records a move to Cornhill and then in 1852 to Cornish works Cornish street. They had by this time also increased their product range to include steel files and shoe & butchers knives. They are again listed in 1944 as manufactures of files and blades, shoe knives and leather workers tools.
In the 1948 listing the business had become George Barnsley and Son Ltd.
The Explore
Having seen this quite a lot but very few and far between at the same time this was one place that I wanted to see. The same applied to @hamtagger. One not so cold February morning we made our way to Sheffield with Mr Barnsley's Cornish works in sight. Firstly thanks to @Fekneejit if it wasn't for you we would have probably been pounced on by squatters, wandering aimlessly around a courtyard continuing our debate on where the squatter we followed in had gone or even worse, slipped on a mouldy orange and be lost forever in the lonesome little area that aided us with getting in.
Anyway, we got in. Walking through the first few bits it was difficult to see how this was going to turn in to something amazing. But lo and behold we carried on, getting excited over retro wallpaper and seeing familiar names etched in to the dirt on the windows we found what we had been looking for. We both got quite carried away. Spotting things that we had both seen in previous reports and some stuff that we hadn't. It was quite noticeable in areas where things had been moved, gone missing or just ruined. Wandering off in different directions and then swapping to not get in each others way. It was a great day and I am pretty pleased to have finally seen George Barnsley & Son. Anyway, on with the pics
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3 - Everyone should be a lover of shit retro wallpaper 
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6 - I loved these, a real slice of history and nice to see along with a lot of the place not trashed.
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Thanks for looking!
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