Horn Handle Works

Horn Handle Works and Shop, Sheffield

A small-scale horn handle works and shop, now used as workshops, dating from the late 19th century with phased construction. Built in red brick with painted stone dressings, hipped slate roofs, and brick stacks with ornamental chimney pots. The building is 2 storeys.

The shop occupies the corner position to the left of the Club Garden Road façade. It features an angled doorway with overlight, flanked by a rectangular projecting bay shop window to the right and a flat shop window to the left return, separated by decorative pilasters and linked by a fascia and cornice above. (The doorway and windows were boarded up as of August 2003.) Above the doorway is a plain panel flanked by canted brick pilasters on stone bases and a moulded stone cill. At first floor level, there are 2-light sash windows with stone cills and chamfered stone lintels. These have 6-pane top sashes with plate glass below, divided by moulded wooden balusters. A slender stone roll moulding extends above, running across the rest of the Club Garden Road façade. The left return has a screen wall with a doorway (20th-century door) with chamfered stone lintel, and a sash window with stone cill and chamfered stone lintel above, the top sash having 8 panes and the lower sash plate glass. A straight joint rises to first floor level only. A stack sits at the rear of the roof slope.

On the Club Garden Road façade, the works section features a stone plinth. To the left is a decorative panelled door with overlight in a moulded stone surround with cornice. Two 2-light sash windows at ground floor have chamfered stone cills and lintels, with 6-pane top sashes and plate glass below. The first floor contains a sash window above the door with stone cill and chamfered stone lintel (8-pane top sash, 2-pane below), and two similar 2-light windows to the right, divided by moulded wooden balusters with plate glass lower sashes. Three decorative ventilators and eaves brackets are present. A stack between windows features a stone cornice. A chamfered angle marks the junction with Broom Close.

The Broom Close façade shows two construction phases, with the later section to the right forming a warehouse. The cellar becomes visible as the site slopes. The earlier works section has a stone-capped plinth and two pairs of sash windows with chamfered stone cills and lintels, featuring 8-pane top sashes over plate glass. A raised loading doorway with plain board doors and chamfered lintel sits above a cellar window opening. A black-painted band above bears an obliterated painted lettering reading "HORN HANDLE WORKS". The first floor has 9 small sash windows (8-pane over plate glass) with stone cills and chamfered stone lintels, set so closely as to appear nearly continuous. Three ventilators are present. A ridge stack marks the junction with the later section to the right, which features a central entrance with chamfered stone lintel and plain board doors, flanked by tall single-light windows with chamfered stone cills and lintels. A similar loading doorway above is fitted with a steel hoist. Painted lettering to the left reads "ESTABLISHED 1792". Two ventilators are present.

The rear wall is rendered and features a stack.

This building represents an important but little-recognised specialist trade forming part of Sheffield's internationally significant cutlery manufacturing industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.