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| A detail of the Tapton Hill Congregational Church |
On the weekend after my investigation of the geology of Hooton Cliff and the historic architecture of Ravenfield, I returned to Sheffield with a plan to visit three more Sheffield Board Schools, starting at Crosspool – a suburb of Sheffield that I had only passed through on the bus.
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| My walk from Crosspool to Shalesmoor |
Alighting from the No. 51 bus on Manchester Road, I firstly went to have a look at Tapton Hill Congregational Church, dated 1913, which I had seen on my day out to Wyming Brook and the Rivelin Valley a few weeks earlier.
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| Tapton Hill Congregational Church |
It reminded me of the style at the Wesley Hall (1907), Crookes Congregational Church (1906), the former St. Luke’s church (1900) in Crookes, designed by WJ Hale and the Methodist church at Banner Cross (1907) by George Baines, but the only reference to it that I have seen mentions Chapman and Jenkinson – a Sheffield architectural practice that evolved from Hemsoll & Paterson, who were responsible for Walkley Carnegie Library (1905) and Greystones Board School (1904).
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| Stonework at Tapton Hill Conregational Church |
Although I didn’t look at the stonework closely, it appears to be quite coarse grained and it is notable for its high iron content, with a large proportion of blocks in the walling having a very distinct red/brown colour that I had not seen before.
The church is sited on the uppermost formation in the Millstone Grit Group, the Rough Rock, which forms a forms a ridge that rises to an elevation of 247 metres above sea level and, just 400 metres to the north of the church, two substantial now infilled quarries either side of Lydgate Lane once extracted this rock and it could therefore possibly be built from this sandstone.
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| A view across the Porter Valley |
In West Yorkshire, the Rough Rock has been widely used as a building stone, with the very coarse pebbly variety being common in the historic buildings and the canal wharf of Leeds and the uniform medium grained variety from Crosland Hill being used ubiquitously in Huddersfield town centre.
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| An exposure of the Rough Rock at the Whirlow Bridge Quarries |
The Rough Rock in Sheffield is not a formation that I know well and the most extensive exposure I have seen is at the Whirlow Bridge Quarries, where it is flaggy in nature and suited for paving and stone roofing tiles, for which it is best known as a building material, along with pavers; however, the Building Stone Atlas of West & South Yorkshire states that building stone was produced at Tapton Hill Quarry at Lydgate Lane.
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| Vernacular architecture on Manchester Road |
Continuing up Manchester Road to the centre of Crosspool, which unlike many of the other suburbs in Sheffield is not an ancient village, there aren’t that many buildings built before the C20. I didn’t look very closely at the few terraced houses that I passed, but there didn't seem to be any obvious physical characteristics that made the stone distinctive.
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| A terrace of houses in Crosspool |
There was, however, a terrace of eight C19 houses built opposite the junction with Lydgate Lane that interested me. Built in the second half of the century, their size and bay windows are more like small Victorian villas for middle class owners, rather those built for the workers.
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| An arched door head with a hood mould and headstops |
The walling looks quite like the Crawshaw Sandstone that was quarried in Crookes, which is just a kilometre away as the crow flies, but the door surrounds are made with very large jambs of massive sandstone, with a large arched head cut from a single slab of sandstone.
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| A detail of a headstop |
A simple hood mould to the window heads are terminated with headstops that depict not only a king and a bishop, but other figures with a lower social status. I had seen detached houses in Crookes and Broomhill with similar headstops, which made me think that these could be standardised carvings that were sold via catalogues.
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| The tower at St. Columba's church |
I finished my brief exploration of Crosspool by first taking a very quick look at St. Columba’s church, which was built in 1956. Again, I didn’t study the stonework closely but it contains a high proportion of blocks that have very similar colouring to that seen earlier at the congregational church, as does the east wall of the early Victorian coach house that I passed on Lydgate Lane.
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| A Victorian coach house on Lydgate Lane |
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