Looking up at the front of Brincliffe Towers, its North-East face, from Chelsea Park.

At the top of Nether Edge there’s a creepy old house that overlooks Chelsea Park. It’s perched high up, so it has no choice but to loom. Several beech trees now grow in the high wall that separates its garden from the park, moss covers the old driveway, and shrubs are sprouting from the building itself.

There are a lot of factors that make Brincliffe Towers (or Brinkcliffe Tower on older maps: there’s only one tower, after all) a bit sinister. The old house itself, dating from 1852, was built in the Gothic revival style, and influenced much of Nether Edge’s architecture. Yet somehow the 1950s extensions make it creepier still.

Of course, the fact that it’s been abandoned since 2010 adds an eerie element. Add to that the small detail that its last use was as residential care home for the elderly and you have a building worthy of a series of low-resolution ghost hunting movies uploaded to YouTube.

That might require the cooperation of the building’s squatters though. They’re definitely squatters and not live in security because a) I’m not sure anyone could be legally asked to live in such a place - the Victorian villa itself is damp and dilapidated in the extreme, and some of the extensions look damp-ridden; and b) the building has endured a lot of damage that security would have prevented. Many windows have been smashed, but most horrendously, in the last two years, the beautiful mosaic in the entrance hall has been hacked up and removed, presumably stolen. The whole house is full of such mosaics, but the entrance hall is the only one I’ve ever been able to see.

And yet the building still has power, which is baffling. There was a great 28 Days Later post from September 2020 with more details about that, the squatter, and images of the interior of Brincliffe Towers, but sadly the whole post seems to have been removed since I started writing this blog. Hopefully it’ll reappear…

The History

‘Why was there a care home in a grand house in a park?’ you might wonder.

Brinkcliffe Tower was built in 1852 for James Wilson, a solicitor with a Sheffielder’s inevitable ties to cutlery. It comprised a Gothic mansion and coach house, with the main building being “particularly notable for its impressive tower and crenelated form.” The surrounding land was laid out as the private gardens to the mansion.

A map of the area that was surveyed in 1850-51, before the house was built. The blue circle shows the rough location of where it was to go. Observant folk might notice a certain large structure in the vicinity that a rich man might find vulgar and unsightly.

It wasn’t until 1902 that the house and parkland were purchased by another solicitor, Robert Styring. He was a city alderman (a councillor, really), went on to be Sheffield’s Lord Mayor for 1906-7, and became a Freeman of the City in 1924. (Today, being granted the Freedom of the City is purely symbolic and confers no special privileges. Whether the same was true one hundred years ago, I don’t know.)

In March 1925, Annie Frances Styring, his wife of forty-five years, suddenly died. Styring was grief-stricken. The prospect of living out his years in a house that he’d envisaged sharing with his wife was too much and, in November of the same year, he decided that the title and deeds of the house and grounds would be given to the citizens of Sheffield as a memorial to his wife: “We have enjoyed the pleasure of the estate and nothing would have given her greater satisfaction than to know the purpose to which it was to be adapted.”

The back of the house, its south-west face, in 1925, as featured in the Sheffield Telegraph on 2nd July, 1925. The caption read, “Alderman Robert Styring’s beautiful home, which, with the estate of about twelve acres, he is generously giving to Sheffield as a memorial to his late wife, Mrs. Styring, J.P.” The glass houses and the wall behind them were demolished when the extensions were added in the 1950s.

Styring remained at the Tower for another decade anyway, then retired to Devon. The Corporation of Sheffield finally gained the keys and in 1935 the grounds were opened to the public as Chelsea Park, taking the name of the road that skirts the north-east edge. (It’s a little odd that Sheffield Corporation didn’t decide on “Brincliffe Park” given the name of the villa and the fact that Brincliffe Edge Road runs along the top edge and is an older and more major road than Chelsea Road, but perhaps they wanted to immediately separate the park from the house.)

Next Chapters

During the Second World War, the house was used as a dormitory for a girls’ school. Then, in the 1950s, it was extended and used as a residential nursing home run by the council. At some point in the 1990s, the villa was sold to an organisation that already ran a care home. It became Brincliffe Towers Residential Care Home and stayed that way until 2010, and the grand Victorian house has been unused since then, while the other care home carried on. Some of the equipment was transferred there, but much remained to rot in the mansion and its extensions.

Recently, some remnants of beds and frames were dumped in a pile on the terrace, but whether than was at the instruction of the current owners or if the squatters just decided they’d like a clear out is unknown. What is obvious is that the future of this ‘Building of Historic Interest’ is very uncertain.

The south-west face of the house, as above, but now without the glasshouses and with the addition of a large extension. This and the following pictures are from the early 90s.

The other view of the extension. A square was formed between the old house and the new block.

The extension bolted onto the north-west face of the house.

Looking further to the right from the photo above, along the new extension and with a view of the old coach house buildings.

The Uncertain Future

Since 2014, the care home owners, Ash House (Yorkshire) Ltd, have submitted multiple planning applications, but each has been withdrawn. All the applications involved restoring the mansion as a residential house, demolishing the 50s extensions, converting the coach house buildings into new dwellings (so far, so good), and building a few massive detached houses between the mansion and Brincliffe Edge Road (a bit more controversial). Initially, they applied to build four houses, then went down to three.

The architects’ vision of the development in the owners’ last (and perhaps final) submission for planning consent. The three extra residences are very large, and not exactly in harmony with the style of the original house and coach house.

Last July, Ash House resubmitted a slightly changed planning application. They made claims that the refurbishment would be “sensitive”, but that didn’t seem too trustworthy given that the owners seemingly care little about the current condition of the house, especially as it’s been so insecure that anyone can go in and either have a mooch or steal an original Victorian mosaic floor.

Local residents weren’t happy, and neither was Historic England, who commented that, though they were in favour of the main house and coach houses being restored, “the proposal would cause harm to the significance of the Nether Edge Conservation Area by altering the historic relationship between Brincliffe Towers and its garden / parkland remains.”

I’ve no idea what the likelihood of the City Council granting approval for the current plans might have been, but this last application was withdrawn on 20th July this year. More bizarrely, Ash House (Yorkshire) Ltd went into liquidation in January. This seems entirely the wrong order of events, but hey: these are strange times.

What that means for poor old Brincliffe Towers is anyone’s guess. Who even owns it now? (It might be Oakes Real Estate Ltd, but that’s just a hunch from me poking about on the Companies House website.)

The Humps of Chelsea Park

If you’ve been to Chelsea Park or even just looked at it on a map, you’ll probably have noticed there are some strange small hills that have been landscaped into the grounds. Significantly, they’ve got trees on top of them. They’re quite nice to walk up and down.

The two humps of Chelsea Park: the smaller one in front of the much larger one.

Their existence is quite easy to explain: the local workhouse. Brincliffe Towers is located high up, looking right over Nether Edge which slopes down below it. The vista from the top floor should be fantastic. But there’s absolutely nothing worse than being a wealthy Victorian solicitor whose view of largely undeveloped land is spoilt by the sprawling union workhouse, a constant reminder of those who are poorer than poor. It’s especially annoying when said workhouse has its own looming towers that make it look like there’s a prison under your nose. Who’d be able to bear that?

One of the larger towers of the old workhouse, which was also a hospital for many years before being turned into homes.

The towers and buildings of the old workhouse, silhouetted against the fading light, ensure it looms in its own way. Perhaps it has out-loomed Brincliffe Towers.

Trees wouldn’t mask it off, even fully mature ones, so the solution was to give the trees a helping hand, just in that particular north-east-east direction, leaving the rest of the panorama open to view.

An 1894 map showing Brinkcliffe Tower on the left, the two mounds for the trees just to the east of the main house, and the workhouse towards the top right.

A close up from the same map, showing Brinkcliffe Tower and the landscaped humps for the trees (circled in blue).

A diagram showing just how ingenious a solution the tree humps were, as the two relatively small stands of trees would obscure almost all of the workhouse from view.

In this 1923 map you can see how the grounds of Brinkcliffe Tower have radically shrunk since the previous map. Presumably Styring sold off the land for house building.

In this 1937 map, the union workhouse has now become Nether Edge Hospital.

Now, of course, there are mature trees that dwarf the house and which may well be protected themselves, so there’s probably very little view from the house at all.

It’s also interesting that it’s the old workhouse that so blighted James Wilson’s view that has mostly survived, while his grand house is falling into greater and greater disrepair. I hope that someone will swoop in with a great solution to this significant building being left to crumble and be vandalised, but I find it hard to feel optimistic about the chances of that happening. Heritage does seem to wither a lot in Sheffield.

It’s no wonder the doorside gargoyles look so despondent.

A stone head from one side of the main entrance: it looks like a crowned lady, and she’s looking upwards as if in annoyance.

A stone head from one side of the main entrance: it looks like a crowned man, with curly hair and he looks somewhat forlorn.

Links and Further Info

Fun fact: Brincliffe Towers apparently featured in Shane Meadows’ TV series Virtues.

Many thanks to David Poole on whose blog there’s detailed information about Robert Styring, the second owner of the villa, and about the house and park themselves.

You can find information about the planning applications here. If the link to the planning details doesn’t work, just search for “Brincliffe Towers” and all the past applications should appear. You don’t need an account to be able to view the comments and documents.

I’m a huge fan of Old Maps Online, which is where I found all the maps above. It’s a fascinating and free resource, and very easy to browse.

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