Details
SHEFFIELD
SK38SW
784-1/9/292
11/02/92
ECCLESALL ROAD SOUTH
(West side)
Banner Cross Methodist Church and
attached rooms and schoolroom
GV
II
Methodist church, adjoining meeting rooms and schoolroom.
Church 1929, by WJ Hale. Former church, now schoolroom, 1907,
by George Baines & Son of London; built by Charles Ward of
Sheffield.
EXTERIOR: 1929 church, coursed squared stone with red brick
and concrete dressings and slate and flat roofs. Free Gothic
Revival style. Chancel, vestries and meeting rooms, nave, west
tower and porch, cloakrooms.
Plinth, low coped gables and parapets, flush string courses.
Single bay gabled chancel has a traceried 3-light east window
and a similar window to north and south. Attached to the east
end, crosswise block of church rooms. 2 storeys; 3 window
range of 3-light cross casements. Below, 3 glazed double doors
with side and top lights. Between floors, rendered panels. The
bays are divided by flat buttresses. North gable has a
flat-roofed addition with canted glazing bar bay window. South
end has a similar bay window on each floor.
Nave, 5 bays, has to east single buttresses. On each side, 3
recesses with brick segmental arches, each containing a
segment-arched traceried double lancet. Between the recesses,
shouldered shallow projections, each with a single lancet with
round-arched brick head.
Single storey vestry, to north-east, has pyramidal rooflight
and half-glazed double doors.
Squat, rectangular west tower, 2 stages, has shallow pitched
coped gable. On either side, a projecting battered cheek, with
recessed top stage and a slit opening on 2 sides. To west, 2
elongated single lancets with round brick arches, transoms and
tracery, and moulded sillband. Between them, a recessed cross,
and above, a round window with brick surround and plate
tracery. Below, a pair of round-arched doorways with imposts,
containing half-glazed double doors with fanlights. On either
side, a recessed panel.
Beyond, on either side, a flat-roofed cloakroom with a 4-light
flat-headed mullioned window. Each return has 2 small single
windows.
Schoolroom, 1907, rock-faced stone and brick, with ashlar
dressings and gabled and hipped slate roofs. Arts and Crafts
style. Central hall flanked by hipped cloakrooms and single
storey meeting rooms, with a similar block across the east
end. Coped west gable has shouldered gabled pediment topped
with a finial. On either side, a square tower buttress with
slit openings at the top and large overhanging flat leaded
caps with tall finials. Segment arched traceried 5-light
Perpendicular style lancet. Below, a 3-light mullioned window,
flanked by segment-arched double doors with hoodmoulds.
Beyond, on either side, a hipped cloakroom with a 2-light
mullioned window. Returns have similar windows. Outside, steps
to paved forecourt with low stone boundary wall with 8 square
gate piers. Wall and piers have chamfered coping.
Main hall has a 6-light box dormer on either side. At the east
end, a segment-arched 5-light window and 2 gable stacks.
Meeting rooms have three 3-light mid C20 windows. Crosswise
block has 3 similar segment-arched windows and conical metal
roof vents.
INTERIOR: church has an overall segment-arched roof with built
up wooden beams on plain stone corbels, and deep soffits.
Ceiling has exposed wooden rafters and plywood panels.
Narrowed east end has 2 rendered pilasters flanking the
stained glass east window. Below the window, a half-glazed
door. On either side, a round-arched recess, that to south
blank, that to north with organ pipes, each with a 3-light
stained glass window above. To north a smaller round arch with
organ pipes, and to south, a half-glazed door. West end has a
round arch containing framed wooden gallery with plywood
panels. Below, on either side, a half-glazed door with
fanlight. Entrance lobby has a round-arched opening at either
end with half-glazed door.
Fittings include original panelled benches and choir stalls,
and modified panelled wooden pulpit. Mid C20 communion rail
and octagonal oak font. Memorials include a 3-panel wooden war
memorial tablet, c1920.
Schoolroom interior has a mid C20 ceiling and on either side,
3 bay arcades with square wooden posts with cornices carrying
the aisle plate. Above, open studding with braces forming
round arches. Tie beams on arch brackets. To north and south,
segment-arched panelled doors. To west, 2 square corniced
internal porches with double doors.
WJ Hale, 1862-c1929, was a pupil of Innocent & Brown before
establishing his own practice in Sheffield in 1893. Between
1893 and 1914, he designed a number of noteworthy board
schools and Nonconformist churches.
(Who's Who in Architecture, 1914).
Listing NGR: SK3280084918
