More news about one of Sheffield’s architectural gems. Back in early 2022 it was announced that plans had been submitted to convert The Mount, on Glossop Road, into fifty-five residential apartments. The application was approved but work never started.
That was probably because there had been a rethink, and a new planning application has now been submitted by Axis Architecture that could see the Grade II* listed building turned into eight townhouses and four apartments instead.
This involves the removal of internal corridors, stairs and lifts associated with the former office use, and the reinstatement of internal dividing walls from front to back to form the townhouses and apartments, with new external stepped accesses to each entrance. The previously approved proposals included eighteen apartments within the main listed building.
The remaining new apartments would be built within the 1950s office block that stands behind Flockton’s building.
The Mount was an ambitious attempt to recreate the grand terraces of Bath’s Royal Crescent and London’s Regent’s Park. It was built between 1830-1832 by William Flockton, aged twenty-six, a builder, and forever famous as one of Sheffield’s leading architects.
Pevsner described it as “a palace-fronted terrace of eight houses, seventeen bays long, with an Ionic giant portico of six columns carrying a pediment and end pavilions with giant columns in antis.”
It was referred to as ‘Flockton’s Folly’ because for the first eight years after construction one person only occupied it. But its popularity increased and became a place of literary fame when James Montgomery lived and died here, while John Holland, another noted Sheffield poet, lived in one of the houses.
It was used as the model for the nearby Wesleyan Proprietary Grammar School in 1838, later Wesley College, and better known now as King Edward VII School.
In 1914, John Walsh, the department store owner, bought The Mount and served notice on its tenants. The need to expand his city centre store meant that his live-in shop assistants needed new accommodation. Numbers 10-16 were used for the purpose, and when the Blitz of 1940 destroyed the store, the building was used as temporary retail space for a year.
It was bought by United Steel Companies in 1958 and converted into offices, with extensive additions to the rear.
In 1967 it became the regional headquarters of British Steel Corporation and in 1978 was purchased by the insurance company General Accident, later becoming Norwich Union.
Aviva, formed from the merger of Norwich Union and Commercial General Union, later owned The Mount, and subsequently rented it to A+ English, a language school, which conducted significant improvements to the offices.
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