"Homemade meat and potato pie followed by homemade Bakewell seem to be huge hit," he wrote.

I will travel anywhere for a meat and potato pie.

It is so quintessentially British.

And it's British Pie Week.

The thought of eating it in an area now more associated with mulligatawny or masala appealed.

Attercliffe, of all Sheffield's suburbs, has more than a touch of the exotic with a big dollop of sauce.

Here you'll find chippies alongside Asian clothes shops, an Islamic book store, a swingers club, saunas, sex shops and a pet shop selling snakes.

And then there's Banners. The Sheffield department store expired in 1980, but still exists as offices and assorted shops. Plus the Courtyard Cafe.

In its heyday Banners (the present building dates from the 1920s) was the place for a bargain.

Fifties years ago, The Star's cuttings library tells me, they queued in the rain from 6.30am for the Banners sale.

"Victorious Mrs Emma Guest of Archdale Road, Manor, clutched a bag containing three shirts, two for her husband and one for her son. Last seen she was heading in the direction of the suit department," recalled this paper on June 20, 1958.

And Banners, everyone will tell you, is where they went to get their school uniforms before the city council held a vote on whether to keep them and ignored the people's verdict because it didn't like the result.

But let's not get political.

Walk through the door and pass the A-board which tells you the cafe is under new management and you really are in a courtyard. Or is it a film set?

One shop has a mock Tudor front and another looks like it could be Georgian.

Imagine a cross between a Sixties Butlins dining room, the function room at the Pickwick, High Green, and the pretend street in the old Stone House and you've got it.

Even before you study the Courtyard's menu – "Quality Guaranteed" – you have to take a look through the shop windows at the £20 giant teapots and ladies court shoes from the Farfalle Shoe Collection for a fiver.

"I didn't know this was here until I bought the cafe," says Ian, a former moderator for an examination board who decided to give catering a go last October.

There are 20 tables seating 80 and you order at the counter of what looks like a little hut with roof.

There are a couple of beer pumps because the cafe is also licensed and does private functions, as well as Full English Breakfasts and sandwiches – nothing above £2.50.

But it's lunchtime when the cafe is busiest with workers from the local offices.

Suits stand in line with overalls in the queue.

We order the meat and potato pie and the fish and chips, both £3.50, from the specials board, which offers liver and onions, quiche, giant Yorkshire pud with sausage, onion and chips and gammon and gammon, egg and chips.

The printed menu also shows chicken curry and chilli.

My pie arrives in a pastry lidded dish on a big plate with a portion of mushy peas.

courtyard cafe
John Banner Centre, 620 Attercliffe Road, Sheffield.
Telephone: 0114 242 0742. Open Mon-Sat 8am-4pm (hot food until 3pm). Licensed bar from noon. Private functions. Free car park at rear.
My star ratings (out of five):
Food 3
Atmosphere 4
Service 3
Value 4
Cafe category. Do not compare ratings between places of different style or price.