The Morley Street Board School

 

The entrance for boys

Since first visiting Crookes and Walkley back in February 2021, where I first encountered known examples of the Crawshaw Sandstone - in the remains of quarry faces at the southern end of the Bole Hill Recreation Ground and as walling stone in the Walkley Carnegie Library – I had encountered other recorded uses at the Hammerton Street, Greystones and Ranmoor schools. 

 

The west block

 

Possessing specialist interests in stone identification and matching, learned while working in the building restoration industry in London, I soon recognised its very distinctive physical characteristics of colour and texture. Having briefly surveyed 40 other Sheffield Board Schools in the meantime, most of which I think are built with Crawshaw Sandstone, I was sure that the former Morley Street Board School, dated 1901, is built out of this stone. 

 

The east block

The school, built in two blocks, was designed by Henry Paterson of the architectural practice Hemsoll and Paterson, who was also responsible for the Greystones Council School and the Walkley Carnegie Library, which is also built in Crawshaw Sandstone from Bole Hill. 

 

Shouldered gables on the east block

As with most of the later schools, it has quite a simple design, with shouldered and Flemish gables being a feature of both of the blocks, but it has few architectural flourishes and lacks the attractive features that are a characteristic of the contemporary Art and Crafts style schools by WJ Hale at Hammerton Street and Holmes and Watson at Ranmoor. 

 

Crawshaw Sandstone walling and Matlock stone dressings

In common with the Pomona Street, Western Road, Ranmoor and Highfield Special schools, the dressings are not of the usual buff coloured Stoke Hall stone from the Kinderscout Grit, but are pink Matlock stone that comes from one of the quarries on the Ashover Grit in the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire.

 

The entrance for Manual Instruction

 

As with the Highfield Special School and Heeley Board School, the school offered specialist facilities that were used by other local schools, with inscribed lintels to the entrances marking the Cookery School for girls and Manual Instruction for boys. 

 

The caretaker's house

The school has a caretaker’s house next to the road, which is also built in Crawshaw Sandstone, with Matlock stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof and the various gate posts in the boundary wall have capping stones made in much coarser grained massive sandstone, which are inscribed to denote the entrance for boys and girls. 

The entrance for girls

Although the Crawshaw Sandstone used in the school buildings can only be seen at a distance, the front boundary wall provides a good opportunity to take a close look at this. Presumably, the best quality uniformly coloured buff stone from the quarry was reserved for the school buildings, with the boundary wall being built with sandstone that contains more iron staining.

 

Crawshaw Sandstone in the boundary wall (21 mm diameter coin)