Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Meeting Rooms And Area Railing

Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Meeting Rooms and Area Railing

A Methodist church with adjoining meeting rooms and area railing, built 1906–08 on Norfolk Street in Sheffield. The building was designed to competition-winning plans by Waddington, Son & Dunkerley of Manchester, but was modified and completed by WJ Hale. It was substantially remodelled around 1960. The structure is constructed of red brick and ashlar with ashlar dressing, featuring hipped and gabled roofs of slate and glazed tiles, executed in the Arts and Crafts style.

The exterior presents a complex and richly detailed composition. A plinth, quoins, string courses and eaves cornice frame the main body, which comprises the church, vestries, meeting rooms and a south-west tower. The windows are predominantly mullioned and cross-mullioned throughout, all fitted with leaded glazing.

The west end features a projecting central section with large panelled flanking pilasters decorated with wreaths, rising through a dentilled cornice and terminating in corniced dies. Above this sits a coped gable with a projecting central feature containing a segmental pediment with a crest. The focal point consists of three tall round-arched 2-light windows with tracery, separated by Ionic pilasters. A blind arcade runs beneath these windows and continues as the parapet of a small balcony to the left. Adjacent to this, a corridor contains two single-light windows, while to the right stands a tall projection with a single window. The ground floor below features a rusticated section with a triple entrance set under a canopy (inserted 1966), flanked to the left by a showcase and to the right by two single-light windows.

The right return towards George Street displays a single-storey section above a basement in four bays. Full-height flying buttresses serve as both structural supports and as piers for the area railing at ground level. Four moulded round-arched windows, each of three lights, punctuate this elevation. The basement contains four plain round arches and is lined with glazed brick.

To the left rises a hipped block of two storeys plus attics, with a two-window range. Two large flat-headed 3-light windows with central round-headed blank panels dominate the facade. A tall round-headed 2-light window marks the left return. The attic level features two 3-light mullioned windows, while the ground floor contains a 2-light mullioned window and a twentieth-century steel shuttered door.

To the right of the west end stands a projecting square porch rising three storeys with a three-window range. The second and third storeys display two 2-light mullioned windows with a sillband and above them three windows—a central single light flanked by two 2-light examples. The ground floor contains three flat-headed barred windows to the left and to the right an entrance with multiple recessed doors, a heavy multi-keystone lintel, and above it a Diocletian window.

The left return to Chapel Walk comprises a two-storey central section in four bays with parapet, containing four 3-light mullioned windows. Below runs a round-arched arcade, now fitted with late twentieth-century shopfronts and reglazed overlights. To the left, a gable displays a 4-light window with a late twentieth-century chamfered entrance with sidelight below.

Further left stands a three-storey block with a six-window range. The fenestration includes four Diocletian windows to the left, followed by a transomed window and a canted stone oriel window of five lights. Above these are six cross-mullioned windows of two and three lights. The ground floor here also features late twentieth-century shopfronts.

To the right stands a double gable with two 2-light round-headed windows and below them a single-light window flanked by two 2-light mullioned windows, all with flat heads.

The south-west tower rises in four stages with string courses and a cornice. The lower two stages are canted, while the upper stages feature double rebated angles. The ground level has round-headed and flat-headed windows to the south and west. The second stage contains cross casements, the upper ones round-headed. The third stage is pierced by very narrow slit windows on each side. The bell stage, designed by Hale, projects on each side with enriched incurving cheeks and displays a round-headed bell opening with heavily rusticated keystones. The tower is crowned with a domed octagonal lantern with four openings.

The interior comprises a main body with five-bay round-arched arcades carried on square piers, with wreaths in the spandrels. A moulded and enriched aisle plate sits on scroll brackets. The roof forms a segmental arch of glazed panels, decorated with patterned stained glass and wreathed medallions at the springing of the main ribs. The east end features a moulded segmental arch with screen (1966). The west end incorporates a gallery with a coffered ceiling. The aisles are screened to form side rooms. All interior fittings date to 1966.

WJ Hale (1862–1929), the architect responsible for the church's completion and the bell stage tower design, designed a number of notable schools and Nonconformist churches throughout Sheffield between 1893 and 1929.