An Exploration of Walkley - Part 3

 

The pediment of the former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Church

The next planned stage of my exploration of Walkley, having had a look at the former Walkley Board School, was to walk up Freedom Road to South Road and then head back towards Sheffield via Howard Street, where I had identified various historic buildings that I intended to photograph for the British Listed Buildings website.

 

The former Freedom Road Baptist church

Freedom Road is laid out on another long steep hill and, except for briefly stopping to look at the old Baptist church built of very pale well bedded sandstone – which I assumed to be another example of the Crawshaw Sandstone from Bole Hill in Crookes – I didn’t look closely at the sandstone used in some of the Victorian terraced houses.

 

The former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel

 

Finally arriving at South Road, I continued south-eastwards until I came to the very imposing Grade II Listed former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel, on the corner with Greenhow Street, which was built in an Italianate style in 1890 to a design by WJ Taylor – another architect from Sheffield whose work I had not encountered before.

 

The former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel

The sandstone used here is again uniformly pale buff in colour, with distinct horizontal beds, but without obvious iron staining or banding. The rock-faced walling stone is laid in thin courses, with the massive sandstone for the dressings appearing comparatively grey in colour, where weathered.

 

The current Ebenezer Methodist Church

 

To the rear of the church, on Greenhow Street, there is another chapel dating to 1904, which was formerly the Sunday School. The walling stone is very similar to that seen in the main building and, based on my observations of the buildings in Crookes and Walkley to date, I would again tentatively identify this as another example of Crawshaw Sandstone.

 

A detail of the current Ebenezer Methodist Church

 

The walling stone is quite clean and the original colour is revealed, but the dressings are very blackened and it is not easy to assign a potential provenance to this stone. Although Stoke Hall stone from Derbyshire has been recorded in many historic buildings in Sheffield, others from the Ashover Grit around Darley Dale and Stanton Moor are very similar in appearance - as is 'Huddersfield stone'.

 

The former St. Mary's National School

Continuing on to Howard Road, the east elevation of the former St. Mary’s National School - built in a Gothic Revival style in 1871 with later additions - was deeply in the shade, but these same general colours and patterns within the stonework were still evident.

 

The tower of St. Mary's church

Immediately adjacent is St. Mary’s church, built in 1869 to a design by John Grey Weightman, who was previously in partnership with Matthew Ellison Hadfield. Historic England have suggested that he was also responsible for the National School and, although the architectural styles are quite different, the materials used in their construction are very similar.

 

St. Mary's church on Howard Street

 

Again not knowing this architect and being unable to identify design features that are a characteristic of his work, I just took a few photos of the church and the simple Creetown granite Walkley war memorial at its south-east corner, before carrying along Howard Road.

 

Walkley war memorial