48-50, GARDEN STREET

House and workshop range at 48-50 Garden Street, Sheffield. Early 19th century with later 19th-century alterations and additions.

The building is constructed of red brick, part-rendered and part-painted, with stone dressings and slate roofs. It follows an L-shaped plan, with the house positioned on the street frontage and incorporating a covered cart entrance that leads through to a narrow yard. A workshop range lines the west side of this yard.

The street-facing house is three storeys tall and three bays wide, with a rendered front elevation. The original house, represented by the wider left bay, contains a single central sash window on each floor, though the ground-floor window is now boarded. The ground and first-floor windows have projecting stone sills and incised stone wedge lintels with keystones. The shorter second-floor window has a stone sill and timber lintel. The house was extended to the right by two narrow bays above the covered cart entrance. These extension bays contain two closely spaced windows on the first and second floors, fitted with six-over-six light sashes, stone sills and incised stone wedge lintels with keystones.

The workshop range in the yard comprises two storeys and three separate sections. The central part is contemporary with the house, while the sections to the left (south) and right (north) were probably rebuilt in the late 19th century. The ground floor of the central section contains, at its south end, an original two-light small-paned casement window with metal corner straps and a segmental brick head, alongside a doorway with a similar head. To the right are two larger replacement windows with deep concrete lintels, the northern one incorporating a doorway. The first floor has eight two-light small-paned casement windows (one boarded), all with metal corner straps and segmental brick heads.

The left-hand (south) section is slightly stepped forward. It features three two-light casement windows with segmental brick heads on both ground and first floors. At first-floor level, rolled steel joists set into the workshop wall support a one-bay gabled cross-range of two storeys that extends across the yard. This cross-range has two large three-light casement windows with brick sills and metal lintels on its south elevation, and a similarly large window (now boarded) above a shallow four-light window on its north elevation, both with metal lintels.

The right-hand (north) section is slightly stepped back. Its ground floor contains a doorway to the left providing access to the first floor, a doorway to the workshop and two two-light windows with segmental brick heads. The first floor has five similar, closely spaced windows with opening top lights. A single-storey lean-to at the north end of the yard contains a similar window.

The central section currently houses three ground-floor workshops, and each flanking section contains one. Additional workshop space exists at first-floor level with independent access, though this was not inspected.

The interior was not inspected.

Garden Street lies in the Hollis Green area of Sheffield, developed in the 18th century as part of the town's expansion beyond its medieval boundaries. By the early 19th century, the area had become a crowded and busy quarter with both houses and numerous small workshops connected to the cutlery trades. The first definite evidence of occupation dates from 1840-1, when Sarah Peace, a file maker, lived in the house. In 1871, the occupier was Samuel Burrows, a cast fork and later table knife manufacturer. By 1910, the property was occupied by Pinder Brothers, electroplate manufacturers.

This building is an extremely rare surviving example of the smallest type of purpose-built urban works combining workshops and domestic accommodation. It is significant to Sheffield's industrial identity as a representative example of the type of small specialist workshop associated with the "little mesters"—craftsmen whose expertise made Sheffield world-renowned as a centre of excellence in the processing of steel into cutlery and edge tools. Many little mesters worked in small purpose-built works of this kind, rather than in the large integrated works built from the early 19th century onwards. Given the loss of many such buildings in the late 20th century due to the decline of the industry, 48-50 Garden Street remains an important survivor. It has group value with the adjacent properties at 52, 54 and 56 Garden Street.