Sterling Works

Details

SHEFFIELD

SK38NE ARUNDEL STREET 784-1/0/0 74-76 01-OCT-04 Sterling Works

GV II Manufactory, formerly edge tool works, later used for the manufacture of silver and silver plated good. Empty at time of inspection (December 2003). c.1850, with late C19 and early C20 alterations and additions. Red brick with stone dressings and slate roof coverings. PLAN: Evolved courtyard plan, with incremental development around and within rear courtyard. EXTERIOR: Frontage range to Arundel Street. 3 storey, 8 bay range, rising from a shallow ashlar pinth and with painted finish. Off centre vehicle entrance to right-hand end with moulded and keyed shallow arch, and to its right, doorway to gate office with semi-circular overlight. Window openings to ground floor are 2 over 2 pane sashes below flat gauged brick heads. At bay 5 altered doorway, formerly with rectangular overlight, now with C20 joinery. To its left a wide semi-circular arch headed opening with keyblock. Further left. an infilled doorway and window opening. 8 first floor windows with gauged brick semi-circular arched heads, 4 with original sash frames. Upper floor cill band, with 14 small rectangular workshop windows, 6 with sash frames. 2-bay return to left hand end, with matching windows to first and second floors. Rear courtyard enclosed on south-west side by long 3 storey range extending from the return to the frontage range, but of earlier date. A lower 2 bay range links the frontage range and the earlier courtyard range, and has slighly different floor levels. This range has a multiplity of windows to first and second floors of varying pattern, mostly with renewed joinery. The courtyard elevation has closely spaced window openings with multi-pane frames on stone cills, the openings to the upper floors with segmentally-arched heads. This range 3 returns on the Eyre Lane at 3 storey height, the remaining parts of the elevation having been remodelled at 2 and 3 storey levels in the C20. The right-hand side of the courtyard range is comprised of a 2 storey monopitch roofed workshop range, with an access stairway to the upper floor workshops,and tall arched window openings to the ground floor. Roof cowls mark the position of the former former hearths to the workshops.The centre of the courtyard is occupied by a 2 storeyed workshop range added in the mid-C20, and linked by a footbridge to the rear of the frontage range. INTERIOR: These have been subjected to ongoing alteration, but generally retain the open-plan character of C19 workshops. There are few surviving workshop fixtures, but the right hand range retains some brick jack-arch ceilings, usually associated in Sheffield works with engine locations or grinding workshops. HISTORY: The works is shown on the 1850 Ordnance Survey plan of Sheffield, with the courtyard ranges and the rear range, but not the frontage to Arundel Street. This is shown on the 1889 plan, together with buildings in the centre of the courtyard. The Goad Fire Insurance plan of 1896 identifies the works as a 'Tool Factory and Powered Works'. The frontage range is identified as a steel warehouse, the 2 storeyed courtyard range as forge shops with brick-arched floors, and a gas engine is shown located in the 3 storeyed courtyard range. Forms a group with the attached Butchers Wheel (q.v.).

A near-complete example of a Sheffield edge tool manufactory which developed between 1850 and the early C20 in incremental fashion, and retaining elements from all stages of its developent. It has strong group value with other significant C19 works complexes in this city centre location, and together with them characterises the distinctive industrial landscape created in C19 Sheffield by the city's metal trades, which were at that time of international significance.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

491351

Legacy System:

LBS

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