With Christmas fast approaching I’m inevitably starting to think about what I’m going to fill those stockings with in just a few short weeks time. Fed up with traipsing around busy, homogeneous shopping centres and trawling the internet for gifts, I was so pleased to find Bird’s Yard tucked away in a corner of Sheffield close by the commercial centre of Fargate.

Here the crafters, entrepreneurs and business minds of the city are creating a new landscape of independent shops and bustling cafés and pubs, and Bird’s Yard brings a lot of these growing businesses together under one roof.

Local artists like Samantha Groom and Lianne Mellor sit alongside vintage purveyors Galabeer and the Dog, and children’s footwear and clothing company Poco Nido. With over 30 vendors there is a wide selection of choice and inspiration depending on whose Christmas list you’re ticking off. From hand selected books, to handmade leather goods, and even food produced in this part of Yorkshire, the Bird’s Yard designers cover lots of styles and tastes, even for those particularly choosy members of the family that won’t be content with a box of Quality Street under the tree.

Images by Amy Bartle