Norton and Norton Lees Board Schools

 

The entrance for girls at Norton Lees Council School

After my walk through Graves Park, I followed the escarpment in Bolehill Wood without seeing any more rock outcrops and stopped briefly at Cherry Bank Road, to look at the view towards Blacka Moor on the edge of the Peak District National Park.

 

A view towards Blacka Moor

I then made my way up to Derbyshire Lane, via the steep Cavill Road - noting the use of the finely cross-laminated Greenmoor Rock in the vernacular architecture and boundary walls on the way - before arriving at the former Norton Board School on Mundela Place.

 

Greenmoor Rock used as a walling stone

The Norton School Board was formed in 1872, with the architect T. H. Wilson being employed as the architect to the Board until 1894. It was built in 1875, with an extension added at right angles to its west end in 1893 and, unlike the schools that were being built in Sheffield to the extravagant designs of C.J. Innocent, it is very plain and has a brick extension built in the 1930’s.

 

The former Norton Board School

With very little of architectural interest to see, I just took a few general record photographs of the building and was more interested in the cross-bedded sandstone that has been used for the walling, which is light grey/brown with a high proportion of orange iron staining.

 

Sandstone walling at the former Norton Board School

 

The Crawshaw Sandstone used for nearly all of the Sheffield Board Schools that I had seen to date has a very uniform light buff colour, with distinctive planar bedding and has proved very durable. The sandstone here, however, is much softer and is differentially weathered and isn’t like any of the named Coal Measures sandstones that I had encountered in Sheffield.

 

Views of St. Paul's church

I then headed off down Derbyshire Lane towards Norton Lees, an area dominated by interwar housing estates, where I stopped very briefly to look at the lodge and chapel at Norton Cemetery and then at St. Paul’s church on Norton Lees Lane, before arriving at the Grade II Listed former Norton Lees Council School.

 

The rear elevation of the former Norton Lees Board School

My first glimpse of the school, built in 1903 to a design by Joseph Norton, was of part of the rear elevation of the building, which the book Building Schools for Sheffield states that it was described as a “handsome business-looking pile standing on the side of a hill well out of reach of the smoke of the city" at its formal opening.

 

The Sheffield School Board inscription

A little further down Upper Albert Road, I got a view of a gable at the east end, where the Sheffield School Board inscription is cut into a massive pinkish sandstone, which is similar to the one that I had previously seen at the Pomona Street and Western Road schools.

 

The east end

Next to this is another gable with a broken segmental pediment, where the Sheffield School Board crest is barely visible through the dirt and beneath this is a band course is made of the same pinkish sandstone, which continues on the front elevation.

 

A general view on Argyle Street

Moving round to the front elevation on Argyle Road, it can be seen that the original school consists of two blocks and, although the stonework is dirty, the typical physical characteristics appearance of the Crawshaw Sandstone can still be determined.

 

Crawshaw Sandstone in the boundary wall

A high boundary wall, which displays the Crawshaw Sandstone to good effect, obscures the lower parts of the building but set within these are separate entrances for the girls and boys – a detail encountered in most of the schools that I had seen to date.

 

The entrance for boys

Continuing along Argyle Street to Argyle Close, glimpses of the school and extensive grounds could be caught through various gated entrances and the Grade II Listed caretaker’s house occupies a gap in the west boundary wall.

 

The caretaker's house

I finished by brief survey of this school at the single storey extension of 1913, also by Joseph Norton, which occupies the south-west corner of the site. I couldn’t get close enough to examine it, but the pattern of the stonework to the walling is very different to the original school and may well be a different stone.

 

The 1913 extension