[9888] Sheffield : Portland Works

Portland Works, Randall Street, Sheffield, 1877.

By JH Jenkinson.

For RF Mosley, cutlery manufacturer.

Grade ll* listed.

Detail.

 

Portland Works is an extremely good and complete example of a large purpose-built integrated cutlery works dating largely from a single 1870s building phase with a well designed layout for this building type. The works was mechanised, with evidence for a steam engine, but there are also unpowered workshop ranges, illustrating the fact that Sheffield based its reputation on the supremacy of traditional methods. This type of complex is very distinctive to the industrial identity of Sheffield, which, at this time was known throughout the world as a centre of excellence in the manufacturing and processing of steel. Portland Works is an important survival which demonstrates the layout of such a complex, highlights the limited use of power in the cutlery manufacturing process, and retains both hand forges and steam grinding rooms, extremely rare survivals of building types related to specific processes, with probably fewer than five sites in Sheffield now retaining evidence of both. These characteristics, together with the degree of completeness of survival make this site of particular importance and justify its upgrading to Grade II*.

Done