Wardonia Works

Wardonia Works is a late 19th-century cutlery works, incorporating a dwelling house and now used as workshops. The building is constructed of red brick with slate roofs and red brick ridge stacks. It has a rectangular courtyard plan.

The Clough Road elevation features a stone plinth and a cart entrance towards the left-hand end, with a segmental brick head, stone impost blocks, and a keystone. To the right of the cart entrance, the ground floor has seven four-pane sash windows with stone cills and shaped stone lintels. The first floor above the cart entrance has five similar windows arranged in a group of 1:3:1, above a continuous stone cill. A blocked window and two doorways are located to the left of the cart entrance, the central one with a panelled door, overlight, and shaped stone lintel, and the left one slightly larger with an overlight and plain lintel, potentially replacing a former window. Above these are two matching windows. The Countess Road elevation features a curved corner with three four-pane sash windows to both the ground and first floors, with the right-hand two being part-blocked. A straight joint separates this section from a dwelling house, probably dating to around 1900, which blocks a former access way into the works yard. This dwelling house has a taller pitched roof and a doorway with a shaped stone lintel and a large bipartite sash window with a decorative painted mullion. The first floor has a single-light sash window, a four-pane sash window, and a wider, lower window with a plain lintel.

The building has group value with St Mary's Church, Bramhall Lane, immediately opposite. The courtyard buildings to the rear were rebuilt in the 20th century. The interior has not been inspected. Wardonia Works was occupied until 1984 by the firm of Thomas W Ward, who manufactured razor blades, including the ‘Wardonia’ brand safety razor launched in the 1920s, and dealt in a wide range of cutlery goods. The works represent the development of mixed industrial and housing areas which were characteristic of Sheffield’s growth in the late 19th century.