Historic Buildings in Fulwood - Part 3

 

Fulwood Hall

Continuing my investigation of the historic buildings in Fulwood, to look at their building stones and to take photographs for the British Listed Buildings website, I had by now reached the open countryside – with views across the upper reaches of the Porter Valley to Ringinglow. 

 

A view of the countryside between Fulwood and Ringinglow

The high ground on which I was standing and that on the horizon is underlain by the Rough Rock, with the Porter Valley and Mayfield Valley being cut through this into the underlying mudstones and siltstones of the Rossendale Formation and the sandstone of the Redmires Flags. 

 

The geology around the upper Porter Valley

 

I carried on along School Green Lane to Harrison Lane, where I could only get limited views of the rear elevation of Fulwood Hall (1620) from over the boundary wall adjacent to the roadside, along with its extensive outbuildings. 

 

Views of Fulwood Hall

From the road, I could see enough to determine that the walling stone, comprising relatively thin courses and containing a significant of dark rusty brown blocks, is probably another example of the Rough Rock. The source of the stone is likely to be the Brown Edge Quarries, which are less than 2.5 km away as the crow flies. 

 

A window with mullions and transoms at Fulwood Hall

 

The quoins and dressings, which include windows with mullions and transoms  that are typical of the Jacobean period, are made of massive, very coarse sandstone that is very probably the Chatsworth Grit and which would have been brought from one of the quarries on the south side of the Rivelin Valley a short distance to the north. 

 

Stone slates at Fulwood Hall

The most impressive aspect of Fulwood Hall and its ancillary buildings are the roofs, which which are all covered in very large and thick stone slates that show very little signs of deterioration. The flaggy nature of the Rough Rock around Sheffield made it ideal for this purpose and also for flagstone paving, examples of which I have not yet knowingly seen. 

 

Hole in the Wall Farm

Walking down David Lane, I soon came across one of the barns that forms part of the Hole in the Wall Farm, where the building materials are the same as those used in Fulwood Hall, but I couldn’t see any part of the main building and only got a glimpse of it from a distance later on my walk. 

 

West Carr Cottages

At the bottom of David Lane, the late C18 West Carr Cottages provide a further example of the Rough Rock being exploited for both stone slates and deep coursed walling stone, with the latter being obtained from more massive beds in the quarry but, with little else to see, I quickly carried on to the adjoining former Fulwood Board School. 

 

The former Fulwood Board School

 

Built in 1878, it is the simplest design by CJ innocent of Innocent and Brown, without any of the flourishes seen at Manor Board School, which was built only two years earlier. It includes a teacher’s house and was designed to accommodate 131 children, which is rather surprising when looking at the low density of population in the surrounding area. 

 

A general view of the front elevation and boundary wall

 

As with all of the historic buildings that I had so far seen, since walking from the Ranmoor Council School, I didn’t spend any time closely examining the various sandstones; however, standing back to take a general photograph of the front elevation, I could clearly see differences in the colours and textures of the sandstones used in the school itself and the various original and recently built boundary walls. 

 

The north gable end of the former Fulwood Board School

 

Most of the 39 board schools that I have visited are, I think, built in Crawshaw Sandstone from the Bole Hill quarries in Crookes/Walkley. Its principal characteristics are its uniform pale buff colour, distinctive planar bedding, medium grain size and limited bed height of the coursed stone and, unless the stonework is very dirty, these can be recognised.

 

The teacher's house

Looking at the lowest courses of the teacher’s house, the sandstone is more massive and contains distinct Liesegang rings and the rest of the sandstone, although planar bedded and in many ways similar to the familiar Crawshaw Sandstone, contains several blocks with dark rusty brown concentrations of iron oxides/hydroxides. 

 

A new section of wlling at the former Fulwood Board School

For such a small school in a remote location, perhaps the use of local Rough Rock might have been a prudent measure – especially since the Sheffield School Board had been cutting costs – but the use of Crawshaw Sandstone with Stoke Hall stone seems to be a near constant design feature of the schools. 

 

The Mayfield Wesleyan Reform Chapel

After having a quick look at the Mayfield Wesleyan Reform Church (1896), I made my way along Mayfield Road where I stopped to photograph the Grade II Listed Carr Houses and a converted barn to the north-east of it from a distance, before walking down to the Porter Brook. 

 

Listed buildings seen from Mayfield Road