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Crookes Congregational Church

Sheffield, Crookes Congregational, Church, Springvale Road

Crookes Congregational Church opened in 1906. Octagonal, it was designed to ensure that everyone in the congregation could see and hear the preacher, vital in nonconformity where preaching was the focus of worship. There was a tradition of octagonal chapels within nonconformity, a number having been built in the eighteenth century and the idea was revived to a limited extent in the 1870s. Hale made full use of the sloping corner site, emphasising the mass of the building with battered (sloping) buttresses. The great open space of the interior was preserved in a skilful conversion to offices in 1989 by the architects BondGlossary Term Bryan Partnership for their own occupation.

Sheffield, Crookes Congregational, Church, Springvale Road

Buttresses pass through some of the windows, a detail used by some of the most avant-garde architects of the day such as W. D. Caroe. As with St Luke's,Northfield Road there is carving of a Tree of Life and of pomegranates.