Park Hill is one of the seven hills on which Sheffield is built and is named in relation to the deer park attached to Sheffield Manor, the remnant of which is now known as Norfolk Park.

Originally inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation and the Smithsons’ unbuilt schemes, most notably for Golden Lane estate in London, the deck-access scheme was viewed as revolutionary at the time. In 1998, following a period of decline, the flats were recognised for their iconic Brutalist style and became Europe’s largest listed building.

In 2011 the first phase of the part-privatisation scheme was completed by developer Urban Splash in partnership with English Heritage, stripping the buildings to their concrete frames and turning the flats into a series of design-led apartments, commercial units and social housing. The second phase will be built to a design by Mikhail Riches and is due for completion in 2022.

A piece of graffiti, ‘Clare Middleton I love you will u marry me’, which is written on one of the bridges linking two of the blocks, was the subject of a documentary broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011, in search of the story behind the motif. As part of the refurbishment of the estate the developers illuminated, in neon, the portion of the graffiti reading ‘I love you will u marry me’.