Crucible Furnace Cellar at 2 Top Side, Grenoside

This is a cellar dating from the industrial period, likely the 18th or 19th century, and situated beneath what was formerly a melting shop at 2 Top Side, Grenoside. The cellar runs east-west and contains five melting holes, with a curved flight of stone steps at the east end leading up to ground level and exiting into the garden.

External stone steps, flanked by stone retaining walls, provide access to the cellar on the east side, formerly the location of the melting shop.

The interior of the furnace cellar is 13 metres long, with a maximum height of 1.94 metres and a width of 0.34 metres. It is barrel-vaulted and constructed of brick, springing off a roughly coursed stone wall on the south side. The west end wall is also stone, featuring a recess whose top was originally open to the exterior (now covered by a stone slab). The north wall is entirely brick. The cellar contains ash-pit recesses designed to accommodate five furnace chambers, positioned beneath melting holes that would have been set into the original floor of the melting shop. The original fire bars upon which the crucible pots sat remain in place, along with metal reinforcing strapping. Small openings at the back of each ash-pit provided access to the stack flues, allowing for regulation of the airflow and temperature beneath the melting holes. Wider openings or recesses, possibly formerly hearths, flank the furnace chambers, and are now blocked. An approximately square opening, covered with a monolithic stone lintel and now blocked with stone, is located towards the west end of the wall. Towards the east end, a possible former hearth has a brick segmental-arched lintel, also blocked with stone. The stone-paved floor includes a shallow central runnel that channels water to a circular well or sump at the east end to prevent flooding.

The former melting shop building above the cellar has been rebuilt as a double garage, which is not considered to be of special interest. Neither is the house and associated extensions to the south of the garage.