Elsewhere in Yorkshire...
Cragg Vale: Cragg Hall Gatehouse, Hebden Royd, Mytholmroyd
This 1906 gatehouse provided a grand entrance to Cragg Hall (architect unknown; burnt down in 1921). Although quite late in date, it harks back to Wood’s Arts and Crafts style, suggesting that he may have designed this without the Modernist influence of J H Sellers. The building includes many of Wood’s favourite features, such as sloping buttresses, mullioned windows, canted bays, and Art Nouveau door furniture (the hinges of the door under the arch are identical to those on the door of his Birkby house Crendon). An early photograph shows that the archway was original in the form of a Gothic arch.
Hinderwell, North Yorkshire: The Croft (now Silkstone Hall)
The Croft (left) was designed by Wood in about 1902 as a house for Henry Silkstone Hopwood, founding chairman of the Staithes Art Group, of which Wood’s artist friend FW Jackson was also a prominent member. The three-storey house is constructed in local sandstone, with pantile roofs (as commonly found in vernacular North and East Yorkshire buildings). In keeping with Wood’s usual practice in his Arts & Crafts style buildings, all elevations are asymmetrical, with canted bay windows, and the main entrance is off-centre. There is a small gable-roofed bellcote, with bell. The driveway features a pair of Art Nouveau-style wrought iron gates, whilst the pedestrian entrance has a kissing gate in similar style.
Totley, Sheffield: The Dingle (127 Prospect Road, Sheffield 17)
Dr Clyde Binfield writes:
'Although it was commended in the contemporary architectural press in Britain and the United States, "The Dingle" seemed to vanish from view when Edgar Wood's reputation was reappraised. Perhaps this was because The British Architect called it "House at Dore" (11 December, 1904, p. 462), and J.H. Elder-Duncan placed it in Cheshire ("a charming little house in one of the most picturesque parts of England": Country Cottages & Week-End Homes, 1912, pp. 132, 169), and E.C. Morgan Wilmott repeatedly called it "the house at Dore" (The Western Architect [Minneapolis, USA], Vol 18, January 1912, pp. 2,3,7). It is in fact in Totley, the Sheffield suburb adjoining Dore.
'It is a self-contained house, not particularly little by modern standards, almost on a butterfly plan, admirably suited to a professional man with a very young family: hence its conveniently planned ground floor (dining room and nursery off a generous central hall, and kitchen close to it), four bedrooms and bathroom on the first floor, and two more bedrooms and a capacious box room in the attic. The house is of local stone, quarried on site, with stone slate roof "of beautiful broken character". It cost £1600 (British Architect) or £1700 (Elder-Duncan). It is a commandingly sited house (locals, still in Boer War mode and shocked by the bareness of it before the trees had grown and the stone had weathered, called it "Spion Kop"), and the grounds were carefully landscaped. There were originally seven acres of grounds but these have been much reduced and what remains is (2015) vulnerable to further development.
'Externally the house has been little altered and it can be regarded as a prototype for several distinctive Sheffield houses by local architects. Internally there has been considerable change. The British Architect applauded its "nice strength and breadth of effect" but Morgan Wilmott was more restrained. He deprecated "the very old looking rubble walling" and "the use of selected old tiles in the roof": "while appreciating the cleverness of the house....with its old world air, one would be better content with honest new material and its attendant and temporary crudeness". It might be felt that his judgment has worn less well than Wood's house.
What of the client? William Blackshaw (1866-1953) was a scholarly yet active Congregational minister.
'He combined a first rate intellect with a social conscience. He pioneered Sheffield's inner city Croft House Settlement (it still exists), living during the week in a small flat close to his work; hence this house in the country (as it still was) for his wife and his nursery-age sons. The money for this came from his wife, Amelia Jane Bantock (d. 1934). Her family were pillars of commerce, Congregatioalism, Liberalism, and civic culture and conscience in Wolverhampton. Why did the Blackshaws turn to Wood? Blackshaw and Wood were certainly men of a type. There was a shared familial sense of educational and civic duty. The Bantocks also demonstrated this. So did the Woods in Middleton. In 1913-14 Blackshaw would be in Berlin, speaking on English social problems and pursuing a Ph.D on the influence of town planning on civic life. Perhaps there was also a Methodist link to be added to the Congregationalism. Sheffield was a strongly Methodist place; Amelia Blackshaw was related to the Hoveys, a Sheffield Wesleyan family whose wide interests in education and the fine and applied arts replicated those of the Wesleyan Sykeses of Lindley and the equally Wesleyan Gallimores and Woods for whom Edgar Wood significantly extended Hallam Lodge, Tapton Crescent Road (1908). These people knew each other.'
This 1906 gatehouse provided a grand entrance to Cragg Hall (architect unknown; burnt down in 1921). Although quite late in date, it harks back to Wood’s Arts and Crafts style, suggesting that he may have designed this without the Modernist influence of J H Sellers. The building includes many of Wood’s favourite features, such as sloping buttresses, mullioned windows, canted bays, and Art Nouveau door furniture (the hinges of the door under the arch are identical to those on the door of his Birkby house Crendon). An early photograph shows that the archway was original in the form of a Gothic arch.
Hinderwell, North Yorkshire: The Croft (now Silkstone Hall)
The Croft (left) was designed by Wood in about 1902 as a house for Henry Silkstone Hopwood, founding chairman of the Staithes Art Group, of which Wood’s artist friend FW Jackson was also a prominent member. The three-storey house is constructed in local sandstone, with pantile roofs (as commonly found in vernacular North and East Yorkshire buildings). In keeping with Wood’s usual practice in his Arts & Crafts style buildings, all elevations are asymmetrical, with canted bay windows, and the main entrance is off-centre. There is a small gable-roofed bellcote, with bell. The driveway features a pair of Art Nouveau-style wrought iron gates, whilst the pedestrian entrance has a kissing gate in similar style.
Totley, Sheffield: The Dingle (127 Prospect Road, Sheffield 17)
Dr Clyde Binfield writes:
'Although it was commended in the contemporary architectural press in Britain and the United States, "The Dingle" seemed to vanish from view when Edgar Wood's reputation was reappraised. Perhaps this was because The British Architect called it "House at Dore" (11 December, 1904, p. 462), and J.H. Elder-Duncan placed it in Cheshire ("a charming little house in one of the most picturesque parts of England": Country Cottages & Week-End Homes, 1912, pp. 132, 169), and E.C. Morgan Wilmott repeatedly called it "the house at Dore" (The Western Architect [Minneapolis, USA], Vol 18, January 1912, pp. 2,3,7). It is in fact in Totley, the Sheffield suburb adjoining Dore.
'It is a self-contained house, not particularly little by modern standards, almost on a butterfly plan, admirably suited to a professional man with a very young family: hence its conveniently planned ground floor (dining room and nursery off a generous central hall, and kitchen close to it), four bedrooms and bathroom on the first floor, and two more bedrooms and a capacious box room in the attic. The house is of local stone, quarried on site, with stone slate roof "of beautiful broken character". It cost £1600 (British Architect) or £1700 (Elder-Duncan). It is a commandingly sited house (locals, still in Boer War mode and shocked by the bareness of it before the trees had grown and the stone had weathered, called it "Spion Kop"), and the grounds were carefully landscaped. There were originally seven acres of grounds but these have been much reduced and what remains is (2015) vulnerable to further development.
'Externally the house has been little altered and it can be regarded as a prototype for several distinctive Sheffield houses by local architects. Internally there has been considerable change. The British Architect applauded its "nice strength and breadth of effect" but Morgan Wilmott was more restrained. He deprecated "the very old looking rubble walling" and "the use of selected old tiles in the roof": "while appreciating the cleverness of the house....with its old world air, one would be better content with honest new material and its attendant and temporary crudeness". It might be felt that his judgment has worn less well than Wood's house.
What of the client? William Blackshaw (1866-1953) was a scholarly yet active Congregational minister.
'He combined a first rate intellect with a social conscience. He pioneered Sheffield's inner city Croft House Settlement (it still exists), living during the week in a small flat close to his work; hence this house in the country (as it still was) for his wife and his nursery-age sons. The money for this came from his wife, Amelia Jane Bantock (d. 1934). Her family were pillars of commerce, Congregatioalism, Liberalism, and civic culture and conscience in Wolverhampton. Why did the Blackshaws turn to Wood? Blackshaw and Wood were certainly men of a type. There was a shared familial sense of educational and civic duty. The Bantocks also demonstrated this. So did the Woods in Middleton. In 1913-14 Blackshaw would be in Berlin, speaking on English social problems and pursuing a Ph.D on the influence of town planning on civic life. Perhaps there was also a Methodist link to be added to the Congregationalism. Sheffield was a strongly Methodist place; Amelia Blackshaw was related to the Hoveys, a Sheffield Wesleyan family whose wide interests in education and the fine and applied arts replicated those of the Wesleyan Sykeses of Lindley and the equally Wesleyan Gallimores and Woods for whom Edgar Wood significantly extended Hallam Lodge, Tapton Crescent Road (1908). These people knew each other.'
