CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Wednesday 5 May 2021

Broomgrove Terrace, Broomhall

I had always thought of Broomhall (as opposed to Broomhill, where I used to live) as the slightly insalubrious area behind the office; thatks to Pevsner, I now know that it actually encompasses the Botanical Gardens, and began life as an estate of middle and upper-middle class housing, including some very fine large houses, in the early to mid nineteenth century.

This was in one way an ideal Pevsner walk, taking me to a not very remarkable building in the suburbs which I would not otherwise have noticed. That's one of the joys of this approach; the taking notice of the not otherwise noteworthy.

Broomgrove Terrace warrants a scant sentence on p. 261: 'Numerous pleasant mid-C19 houses on the s side of Clarkehouse Road. Further w, Nos. 61-67 Broomgrove Terrace are a group of four Italianate Houses, C1844 with shared doorcases.' 

Once again, I was sufficiently familiar with the territory to set off without map or satnav to Clarkehouse Road, and identified nos. 61-67 without much difficulty.

Just as the view of Barclays Bank was obscured by street signs and a tram wire pole (perhaps those things have a special name?), again here some traffic lights and a parking restrictions sign hampered the view of the front of the houses, behind their relatively neat privet hedges. You can just about see those shared doorcases. At least one of the houses (and probably all) is student accommodation; this whole area is very much the territory of Sheffield Hallam, surrounding their Collegiate Campus. This was actually the first part of Sheffield I ever visited, as I had an interview at Hallam some time before the one that landed me the job at Sheffield ('Uni of' as our students appear to call it to distinguish it from our post-92 citymate).

I couldn't walk all the way around the terrace, but managed to capture the back and one flank
complete with coal hole and decorative cast iron grilles, and this window which I rather liked
I did this walk on Sunday 18th of April, which was a lovely bright morning. I took a roundabout walk through three different parks, making a total round trip of 3.65 miles, in the course of which I saw nine discarded masks.



3 comments:

  1. Enjoying the Pevsner. The things that hold the tram wires up are called "traction poles".

    ReplyDelete
  2. But the structures that perform the same task on electrified railways are known as "masts".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent, thank you.

    ReplyDelete