The Wincobank Board School

 

The entrance for boys at Wincobank Board School

For may next day out in the first week of May, having had a good look at the historic stone buildings around Ecclesall Road and the Broomhall Estate, I decided to take a walk from Wincobank to Burngreave via Grimesthorpe in the north-east of Sheffield.

 

A general view

I started my journey by catching a bus into Sheffield and then taking the No. 95 bus to Newman Road in Wincobank, to look at the former Wincobank Board School, which was one of the Township Schools that were absorbed into the Sheffield area by various boundary changes.

A general view

Unexpectedly, the current nursery school pupils were out in the play area and, after speaking to one of the teachers on duty, I just took a few quick snaps to record its general architectural features and decided to come back at another time.

 

A general view

It was built in 1884 to a design by Wilson and Masters, with an extension in 1894 and another by GA Wilson in 1907. These were architects that I had never heard of before and, although the building looks very plain, I would have liked to have taken more photographs of the stonework - to enable me to further appreciate its colours and textures.

 

A general view

The few general photographs that I took at a distance suggest that Crawshaw Sandstone may not have been used for the walling stone, as seen in many other Sheffield Board Schools that I had visited to date; however, the inscribed gate piers are made of coarse gritty cross-bedded sandstone, which would have been brought from this part of Sheffield.

 

The entrance for infants

 

As the crow flies, the school is 6.5 km away from the Crawshaw Sandstone quarries at Bole Hill in Crookes, but the intervening topography is very hilly and, with no direct route between them, it would have been cheaper to use sandstone from the local Silkstone Rock or Parkgate Rock.

 

The entrance for girls