David Mellor's Round Building keeps Sheffield cutlery making alive in Hathersage

Many people use David Mellor's designs every day without realising it. The Sheffield-born designer redesigned the UK traffic light system in 1965, and it remains in use across the country. But his first love was metalwork, and his legacy lives on in a striking circular factory in the Peak District village of Hathersage.

Mellor was born in Ecclesall in 1930 and began training at Sheffield College of Art at the age of eleven, before studying at the Royal College of Art from 1950. He first ran a Sheffield workshop making one-off silverware, including tableware for British embassies.

His 1963 Symbol range was the first high-quality stainless steel cutlery to be mass-produced in the UK. He later redesigned government-issue cutlery, cutting the standard place setting from eleven pieces to five, and designed street furniture including bus shelters, with around 140,000 installed.

In 1973 he began making his own cutlery at Broom Hall in Sheffield, and in 1990 he opened the Round Building factory at Hathersage, designed by architect Michael Hopkins. A shop and design museum followed in Hathersage in 2006, alongside the shops he had run since opening in London in 1969.

The honours were many. Mellor became the youngest Royal Designer for Industry in 1962, chaired the Crafts Council from 1983, and was appointed OBE in 1981 and CBE in 2001. He retired from designing in 2005 and died in 2009. His son, Corin Mellor, is now Creative Director of David Mellor Design.

Hathersage is a fitting home. The village has a long history with metal: in 1566 Christopher Schutz set up a wire-drawing works there, which later led to pin and needle production. Today visitors come for the hills, the open-air pool and the stories of Charlotte Brontë, who stayed at the vicarage in 1845 while writing Jane Eyre.

The Round Building is a reminder that great design and skilled making can sit happily together in a rural setting, and that the craft traditions of Sheffield reach well beyond the city boundary.

Details of the shop, café and cutlery collections are on the David Mellor Design website.