Reasons for Designation
Nos. 48-50 Garden Street was identified as being of special architectural and historic interest by English Heritage during a thematic survey undertaken to assess the best surviving examples of buildings associated with Sheffield's metal manufacturing and metal working trades. It was identified as a now extremely rare example of the smallest type of purpose-built urban works with workshops and domestic accommodation. This type of complex is significant as part of the industrial identity of Sheffield, being associated with the `little mesters', specialist craftsmen whose skill was the reason that the city was known worldwide as a centre of excellence in the processing of steel into cutlery and edge tools. Whilst many little mesters worked in the large integrated works which had been built since the early C19, many more worked in contemporary small purpose-built works. Against the loss of many such buildings in the late C20 due to the severe decline of the industry, Nos. 48-50 Garden Street is an important survivor, and has Group Value with the adjacent 52, 54 and 56 Garden Street. It is therefore recommended that the complex is listed at Grade II.
Details
SHEFFIELD
784-1/0/10107 GARDEN STREET
09-FEB-07 48-50
II
House and workshop range. Early C19 with later C19 alterations and additions.
MATERIALS: Red brick, part-rendered, part-painted, with stone dressings and slate roofs.
PLAN: L-shaped plan, with house on street frontage incorporating covered cart entrance through to a narrow yard with a workshop range along its west side.
EXTERIOR: Three-storey, three-bay house with rendered front elevation on Garden Street. Original house represented by wider left bay, with a single, central sash window on each floor (that on the ground floor boarded). The ground and first floor windows have projecting stone sills and incised stone wedge lintels with keystones, and the shorter second-floor window has a stone sill and timber lintel. House extended by two narrow bays to the right over a covered cart entrance to the yard. Two closely spaced windows on the first and second floors with six-over-six light sashes, stone sills and incised stone wedge lintels with keystones.
Workshop range in yard of two storeys and three builds. The central part is contemporary with the house, the sections to left (south) and right (north) were rebuilt probably in late C19. The ground floor of the central section has, to the left, south end, an original two-light small paned casement window with metal corner straps and a segmental brick head, with a doorway with similar head. To the right are two larger replacement windows with deep concrete lintels, the northern one incorporating a doorway. To the first floor are eight two-light small paned casement windows (one boarded) with metal corner straps and segmental brick heads.
The section to the left (south) is slightly stepped forward. It has three two-light casement windows with segmental brick heads to both ground and first floors. At first-floor level rolled steel joists set into the workshop wall carry a one-bay gabled cross-range of two storeys across the yard. It has two large three-light casement windows with brick sills and metal lintels to the south elevation and a similarly large window (now boarded) above a shallow four-light window, both with metal lintels, to the north elevation.
The section to the right (north) is slightly stepped back. On the ground floor it has a doorway to the left giving access to the first floor, a doorway to the workshop and two two-light windows with segmental brick heads. Five similar, closely spaced, first-floor windows have opening top lights. A single-storey lean-to at the north end of the yard has a similar window.
Central section now has three ground-floor workshops, and each flanking section has one. Further workshop space at first-floor level independently accessed (not inspected).
INTERIOR: Not inspected.
HISTORY: Garden Street lies in the Hollis Green area of Sheffield which was developed in the C18 as part of the expansion of the town beyond its medieval boundaries, and by the early C19 had the character of a crowded and busy quarter, with both houses and numerous small workshops connected with the cutlery trades.
The first definite evidence for the occupation of the property dates from 1840-1 when Sarah Peace, a file maker, lived in the house. In 1871 the occupier was Samuel Burrows, a cast fork manufacturer, later a table knife manufacturer, whilst by 1910 it was occupied by Pinder Brothers, electroplate manufacturers.
SOURCES
English Heritage: `One Great Workshop': The Buildings of the Sheffield Metal Trades (February 2000 ' unpublished analysis of research), English Heritage: `One Great Workshop': The Buildings of the Sheffield Metal Trades (2001), 48 Garden Street, Sheffield NBR No. 98251, 1998.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
Nos. 48-50 Garden Street was identified as being of special architectural and historic interest by English Heritage during a thematic survey undertaken to assess the best surviving examples of buildings associated with Sheffield's metal manufacturing and metal working trades. It was identified as a now extremely rare example of the smallest type of purpose-built urban works with workshops and domestic accommodation. This type of complex is significant as part of the industrial identity of Sheffield, being associated with the `little mesters', specialist craftsmen whose skill was the reason that the city was known worldwide as a centre of excellence in the processing of steel into cutlery and edge tools. Whilst many little mesters worked in the large integrated works which had been built since the early C19, many more worked in contemporary small purpose-built works. Against the loss of many such buildings in the late C20 due to the severe decline of the industry, Nos.48-50 Garden Street is an important survivor, and has Group Value with the adjacent 52, 54 and 56 Garden Street.
