Architecture in Broomhill & Endcliffe II

 

Walling stone at Endcliffe Edge

Continuing my exploration of the area around Broomhill and Endcliffe in Sheffield, with my primary objective to photograph various buildings for the British Listed Buildings website and to have a look at the building stones used in their construction, I made my way down Endcliffe Vale Road. 

 

A house that has been converted into two dwellings

 

In this affluent suburb, as with those on Fulwood Road, the houses are set back from the road in spacious gardens and very often screened by a high boundary wall, hedges and trees and I couldn’t really see very well the sandstone that they are built with, but the boundary walls seem to be mainly made of Crawshaw Sandstone, with other varieties used for gatepiers. 

 

Massive yellow sandstone used for a gate pier

The open character of the area of the C19, which was dominated by Endcliffe Hall (1865) – built for Sir John Brown by Flockton and Abbot – is now dominated by C20 housing and large blocks of student apartments owned by the University of Sheffield, but a series of lodges mark the entrances to large Victorian houses, some of which have since been demolished. 

 

An old lodge on Endcliffe Vale Road

These include the lodge to Endcliffe Hall, which is built in large blocks of uniformly buff ashlar sandstone that looks like it has been brought in from Derbyshire and is presumably the same stone that is used for the main house, which is now the Regimental Headquarters of Army Reserve unit 212 (Yorkshire) Field Hospital and is not accessible by the general public. 

 

The lodge to Endcliffe Hall

A little further along Endcliffe Vale Road, there is another lodge to Halifax Hall (1840), a house that was built for another Victorian steel baron, subsequently occupied as a university hall of residence for women and is now a hotel, wedding venue and conference centre. 

 

The lodge to Halifax Hall

Quickly walking down to Brocco Bank through detached and semi-detached villas, which formed part of the development of the area in the second half of the C19, I came across yet another lodge on Clarkehouse Road at the entrance to a house formerly known as Oaksholme, but which is now the Crewe Hall warden’s house at the University of Sheffield. 

 

The lodge to Oaksholme

The rapid expanse of the suburbs either side of Fulwood Road in the second half of the C19 entailed the construction of very many large houses, which would have required a considerable and regular output from the principal quarries supplying stone in Sheffield. 

 

A view of Saint Cecilia House

 

Although I was unable to closely examine the stone used in the many houses that I encountered between Taptonville Road and Saint Cecilia House (1865) on Westbourne Road - a distance of over 2 km - except for Endcliffe Hall lodge, I didn’t see any obvious differences in the colours and textures of the sandstone that I encountered.

 

Another view of Saint Cecilia House

Mainly through my investigations of the Sheffield Board Schools, by now I had got to know the principal building stones used in Sheffield very well - using specialist stone identification skills first learned in the building restoration industry. I would therefore be very interested to see any documentation, which relates to the sourcing of stone used for the Victorian developments at the heart of the Broomhill and Endcliffe Conservation Areas.  

Broomhill and Endcliffe Conservation Areas