Wardonia Works

SHEFFIELD

784-1/0/10095 CLOUGH ROAD 26-JAN-05 WARDONIA WORKS

II

Also Known As: WARDONIA WORKS, COUNTESS ROAD Cutlery works, incorporating dwelling house, now workshops. Late C19. Red brick with slate roofs and red brick ridge stacks. PLAN: Rectangular courtyard plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Clough Road elevation has stone plinth. Cart entrance towards left-hand end, with segmental brick head and stone impost blocks and keystone. To right, ground floor has 7 4-pane sash windows with stone cills and shaped stone lintels. First floor to right of cart entrance has 5 similar windows grouped 1:3:1, above continuous stone cill which stretches the entire length of the building. Similar window above cart entrance. Gutter brackets. No evidence of stacks to this section. To left of cart entrance, ground floor has a similar window, now blocked, and two doorways, that to centre with panelled door, overlight and shaped stone lintel, that to left slightly larger, with overlight and plain lintel, perhaps replacing a former window. 2 similar windows with plate glass sashes above. Gutter brackets, 2 ridge stacks. This section of the building is reputed to have been a public house. Curved corner linking to Countess Road elevation, which has 3 similar 4-pane sash windows to ground floor and 3 similar to first floor, the right-hand 2 part-blocked. To left, a straight joint divides this section from a former dwelling house, probably of c1900, blocking a former access way into the works yard. 2 storeys, with pitched roof taller than that of the adjoining block. Ground floor has doorway to left with shaped stone lintel, overlight and modern door, and large bipartite sash window with shaped stone lintel, divided by decorative painted mullion. First floor has a single-light and a 4-pane sash window, both with shaped stone lintels, and a wider, lower window with plain lintel introduced to the right, crossing the straight joint. Continuous first-floor cill band, gutter brackets. The building has group value with St Mary's Church, Bramhall Lane, immediately opposite. The courtyard buildings to the rear have been rebuilt in the C20. INTERIOR: Not inspected. HISTORY: Occupied until 1984 by the firm of Thomas W Ward, manufacturers of razor blades (including the 'Wardonia' brand of safety razor launched in the 1920's) and merchants dealing in a wide range of cutlery goods. Wardonia Works is a little-altered late C19 cutlery works formed by the amalgamation of 3 separate premises, sited close to the grade II* St Mary's Church. In its form and location, it represents the development of mixed industrial and housing areas which typified the growth of Sheffield in the late C19. SOURCES: 'One Great Workshop' The Buildings of the Sheffield Metal Trades. English Heritage 2000. 'Wardonia Works, Clough Road/Countess Road , Sheffield , South Yorkshire' NBR No. 98297 1999.