Summary
House. 1904 by the architect Edgar Wood for the Rev. William Blackshaw.
Reasons for Designation
The Dingle, 172 Prospect Road, Totley Rise, Sheffield, of 1904 by Edgar Wood for the Rev.William Blackshaw, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architect: designed by Edgar Wood, one of the most progressive of all Edwardian architects whose influential designs were at the cutting edge of European contemporary architecture
* Architectural Interest: characteristic of Wood’s designs of this period being an exemplary example of his Arts and Crafts architecture, using local materials and vernacular forms with asymmetric massing and varied elevations carefully arranged to provide all-round visual interest
* Landscaping: Wood’s dramatic design of a stone house rising out of a series of stepped stone terraces and retaining walls is clearly a deliberate aesthetic response to the rugged Peak District landscape of the area
* Plan form: a clear illustration of Wood’s particular skill in designing a house for its setting according to the needs of the internal layout rather than compromising rooms to fit a preconceived exterior form as was more conventional at this time
* Interior survival: many high-quality original features survive, which contribute greatly to the historic character of the building
History
The Dingle, Totley Rise was built in 1904 in the Arts and Crafts style to designs by Edgar Wood for the Rev. William Blackshaw, a Congregationalist Minister. Mr Dyson was the builder and joiner and Mr Manders was the mason, both of Sheffield. The house cost £1,600.
As outlined in a 1901 lecture Wood stressed the importance of bespoke layouts to meet the needs of client and site, then working up the elevations from the plan, only making modifications which did not harm the planning. The design here was compact with a diagonally-set main entrance bisecting an inner angle between two gables. Inside were three main rooms off a central hall and there was no stabling provision. The house was constructed of rubble stone with strong brown iron patches taken from a tiny quarry located to the immediate south of the building in what was to become part of the garden. The steeply sloping site meant that the house was built with a deep, shaped retaining wall on the west side forming a terrace with steps down to the garden below and a raised terrace against the south elevation, both providing magnificent views across to the surrounding moorland and echoing the craggy, upland landscape. A photograph of 1911 shows that a boundary wall with a small, triangular corner building looking out towards the moors was also part of the original design.
The architect Edgar Wood (1860-1935) was born in Middleton and after qualifying in 1885 initially set up a practice in Middleton, moving to Manchester in 1892 as his practice flourished, though he always ran the business on a personal scale, designing, detailing and supervising the work himself. Wood’s architectural sympathies lay with the progressive movement of the day commencing with the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a founder member of the Northern Art Workers’ Guild in 1896 and was well-known to Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, who were fellow members. His designs were then influenced by Art Nouveau, and finally there were his avant-garde designs anticipating the Expressionist architecture of the 1920s and Art Deco of 1930s. Pevsner described him as the most progressive of all Edwardian architects whose designs were at the cutting edge of European contemporary architecture, and he gained a considerable national and international reputation, notably in Germany.
In 1904 the internationally-read journal ‘The Studio’ reviewed Herman Muthesisus’ Das Englische Haus, one of the finest contemporary sources on the topic of Arts and Crafts architecture. At this time Wood was noted alongside other well-known Arts and Crafts architects. The review said ‘…in the modern section are fine renderings of an infinite number of famous artistic homes designed by Philip Webb, Norman Shaw, Baillie-Scott, C F A Voysey, Edgar Wood & other famous architects’. Wood’s initial unrealised design for ‘A House at Dore by Edgar Wood’ was published in a 1903 ‘Magazine of Art’ article penned by T Raffles Davison. Subsequently there were artistic drawings, plans, descriptions, and, slightly later, external photographs published in a series of journals and books. These included ‘Academy Architecture’ 1904-1, June 1904, ‘The British Architect’, 16th December 1904 (alongside Lutyens and E J May), the ‘Builders Journal and Architectural record’, 11th Jan 1905, ‘the Architectural Review’, June 1911, J H Elder-Duncan, ‘Country Cottages and Weekend Homes’, 1912, and E C Morgan-Willmot, ‘Modern English Domestic Architecture’ in ‘The Western Architect’ (California), 1912 (alongside Voysey and Newton).
The Rev. Blackshaw was the first Warden of the Croft House Settlement. The Settlement, inspired by East London’s Toynbee Hall, was opened in a former Congregational Chapel in October 1902 to minister to the inhabitants of the Crofts, a poor neighbourhood in the north of Sheffield. Facilities provided included a gymnasium, men’s recreation room and snooker room, boys’ reading room, hall for meetings, and soup kitchen. The Settlement continues its work 113 years after its foundation, providing facilities for a range of sports, arts, music and educational activities.
The Rev. Blackshaw was living at The Dingle with his wife, Amelia Jane, and his son, Maurice Bantock, in the 1911 census and may have owned the house until 1922 when it was bought at auction by Walter Carter, a steel worker with Armstrong Whitworth. Amongst the details is mention of a large room under the dining room suitable for a full-sized billiard table. Walter Carter died in 1932 and the property was subsequently sold.
The house was first depicted on the 3rd epoch 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map for Derbyshire, published in 1923. At this time the house was placed centrally within the triangular site. The grounds extended further south with a large, south garden mainly enclosed by shaped retaining walls, and an orchard in the south-west corner on the site of the former quarry. At a later date the size of the grounds was reduced and the southern side of the site was developed with the construction of housing and a cul-de-sac road. Recently the northern end of the garden and the south-west corner of the reduced grounds have passed into separate ownership.
Details
House. 1904 by the architect Edgar Wood for the Rev. William Blackshaw. Local, roughly coursed rubble stone; stone slate roofs; leaded casement windows
PLAN: compact right-angle plan with diagonally-set, main entrance bisecting inner angle. Entrance vestibule, central hall with three main rooms off and staircase up to attic floor. Originally four first-floor bedrooms, bathroom and separate w.c. (now three bedrooms, larger bathroom, and w.c.). Two bedrooms and storage (boxes) room on attic floor. Small cellar. Basement room separately accessible from exterior. Small, single-storey service range projecting to the north.
EXTERIOR: the house stands on a site which falls to the west. On the west side, overlooking Woodland Place, the house is of four storeys including an attic and a basement room, and on the east side (Prospect Road) the house is of three storeys including the attic. The main ridgeline runs north-south, with a large wing with a slightly lower ridgeline projecting to the west. Attached to the north side is a small, single-storey service range. All the elevations are asymmetric. Windows are of varying sizes with white-painted timber frames, small pane leaded glazing, and the occasional opening casement. The windows are set directly into the wall without formed stone surrounds. The roofs have stone slates.
The main entrance doorway is situated in a narrow, diagonally-placed wall with a gablet bisecting the inner, north-west angle. The doorway is approached by a wide flight of shallow, stone steps opening onto a square, raised terrace bounded by rubble stone walls with stone coping and taller, square piers to each side of the steps. At the rear of the terrace are two further steps, the second set into the wall. The large, round-headed, plank door has a narrow, round-headed window set centrally above the letterbox with brass surround. It has Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass. The round doorknob has a tall, rectangular brass fingerplate. To each side of the door, and contained within the frame, is a small, narrow light with small pane leaded glazing and a stone sill beneath. Over the doorway is a small, iron lantern and at first-floor level, just beneath the eaves, is a three-light rectangular window. The gablet rises above the eaves level overlapping the adjacent pitched roofs. The left-hand, west-facing elevation has a two-light window at ground-floor level (originally smaller). The right-hand, north-facing elevation has two small windows adjacent to the doorway positioned in line at ground and first-floor levels. At mid-point and rising from the roof pitch is a tall, rectangular chimney stack.
The west, gable wall of the wing has a centrally-placed, two-storey canted bay with windows with white-painted timber mullions on the ground and first floors and a flat roof. In between the ground and first floors is now tile-hung (originally rubble stone). To the left on the ground floor is a small window, and lower to the right is a round-headed doorway to the basement room with a plank door. In the apex of the gable is a small attic window. Attached to the south side, and continuing the line of the wall face is the retaining end wall of the south terrace.
The south elevation has a pitched roof on the left-hand side and a gable on the right-hand side with a wide, two-storey canted bay and an offset stack at the apex with the pitch on the east side rising higher up the stack. The fall in the land means that the ground floor of the house is raised with a terrace. The narrow, rectangular terrace has rubble stone retaining walls rising to form low stone bounding walls with stone coping, and a flight of steps down to the garden. The ground floor has a long, five-light window with a doorway and adjoining two-light window to the right. The plank door has decorative iron strap hinges and a finger-latch. At first-floor level is a four-light window directly beneath the eaves and a three-light window above the doorway and window. At the right-hand end the two-storey canted bay has a pyramidal roof which lines up with the east pitch of the gable. It has five-light windows on ground and first floors.
The east elevation has a central, stair-bay which rises through eaves level with a gabled dormer. It has a two-light window on the ground floor, a three-light window at half-landing level and a three-light window at attic level. The ground and first-floor windows to either side are irregularly placed and sized.
The north gable wall has an offset, large, rectangular stack rising on the left-hand side of the gable apex. It has a small, three-light attic window and a similar first-floor window set towards the right-hand side and adjacent to a small, single-light window. The ground floor is abutted by the single-storey service range.
The single-storey range has a pitched roof and runs north-south. The east side has a small, flat-roofed kitchen extension at the left-hand end with small pane leaded windows similar to the original windows. To its immediate right is a doorway with rectangular overlight. At midpoint in the rubble stone wall is a two-light window. The west side has a small single-light window and adjacent, small, two-light window at the right-hand end.
INTERIOR: the interior contains many original features, notably the doors and staircase (painted white). The windows have deep, timber lintels and sills of small, square red tiles. The entrance vestibule has a large beam over the doorway. The room has half-height vertical reed-panelling painted white. It incorporates shallow, projecting shelves to each side of the door and a corner bench with a shaped support in the right-hand angle. The floor is tiled with small, square, red tiles. The inner doorway is round-headed with double doors and a small, narrow light to each side. The side lights and row of four small lights in the doors have Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass. The doors have large Art Nouveau brass fingerplates together forming a heart-like shape. The vestibule opens into a rectangular hall with timber joists running across its width. It has an original chimney-piece to the fireplace with canted jambs and an elongated, tapering, Art Nouveau chimney-hood with four iron studs and a simple, projecting mantelpiece. To the right of the vestibule doorway is a narrow, round-headed cloakroom doorway with a simple architrave and a door with a small, heart-shaped light and tall, rectangular brass fingerplate. The dog-leg staircase opens off the hall through a round-headed archway and rises with half-landings up to the attic floor. It has a vertical reed-panelled solid timber balustrade with a shaped handrail and plain, square-cut newel posts (painted white); the staircase has been boxed-in on the first-floor landing, with a round-headed doorway, but retains the original balustrade. At ground-floor level, beneath the staircase, is a round-headed doorway with vertical reed-panelling and rectangular, brass fingerplate. A flight of stone steps lead down to the cellar. The doorways off the hall into a sitting room (originally the kitchen) and dining room (originally the nursery) have simple, moulded architraves and vertical reed-panelled doors. A large, round-headed doorway opens into the large sitting room (originally the dining room). The double doors each have a small, narrow light with Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass and share large Art Nouveau brass fingerplates together forming a shield-like shape. The room has a large bressummer beam running its length to form an inglenook; the chimneypiece is a replacement. The original doors on the upper floors have simple, moulded architraves and vertical reed-panelled doors. The master bedroom, above the large sitting room also has a large bressummer beam running its length to form an inglenook with the room entered through a doorway opening into it; the original chimney piece is no longer present.
SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: on the west side of the house is a tall, rubble stone wall built with a convex curve beside the gable wall of the wing to form a terrace area beside the house. The wall acts as a retaining wall to the land on which the house stands and also as a garden wall to the south-west garden area which is much lower than the house level. A flight of curved stone steps with rubble stone walls link the terrace and the garden and a lower garden wall continues to the south and returns to the south-west corner. In the south-west corner is a small, triangular garden room with a curved wall between the two boundary walls. It has battlemented walls (largely covered in ivy) with stone coping. The west, street side of the room is formed by a continuation of the rubble stone boundary wall. It has a shallow, curved oriel window supported on two rubble stone corbels with three lights with stone mullions and wooden frames. The west boundary wall runs along the east side of Woodland Place the length of the site reducing in height towards the north as the land rises; there is a recent, large opening in the wall towards the south end giving access into the south-west lower garden. To the left of this the wall rises in a triangular pediment over the entrance doorway to the house. The round-headed doorway has a large plank door with iron studs and a circular drop handle. At eye level is a small, central, iron grille above which THE DINGLE is written in applied iron letters.
As stated above, the extent of the listing has been defined using S.1 (5A) of the Act such that the demolished section of the NW boundary wall and its extension along Woodland Place are excluded.
Mapping note: the mapping includes terrace/garden walls which are mentioned in the Subsidiary Items, but are not shown on the modern mapping and so their mapped locations are approximate, taken from historic mapping.
