Tapton Hall is a Grade II listed building situated on Shore Lane in the Crosspool

Crosspool

Crosspool is a suburb of the City of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, located west of the city centre. It is a Middle class residential area in an elevated position above the Porter and Rivelin valleys and stands at around 200 metres above sea level...

 area of Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, England.

History

The present day Tapton Hall was built in 1855, however a building known as Tapton House existed on the site before that. The date of the construction of Tapton House is unknown but it is known that Mary Shore (thus Shore Lane) lived in the house until her death in 1853. Mrs Shore was the Grandmother of Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...

 and the young Florence often stayed at the house. Upon the death of Mary Shore in 1853, aged 96, the house was bought by Robert B. Mitchell who within two years had sold the house to the Sheffield steel magnate Edward Vickers

Vickers

Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

.

Vickers’ first action was to demolish Tapton House and completely rebuild it in 1855 as Tapton Hall. Vickers used the architects Flockton & Son and the house was built in the Classical

Classical architecture

Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...

 style with Italianate

Italianate architecture

The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

 features. In 1867 the house was bought by George Wilson of the family

Wilsons of Sharrow

Wilsons of Sharrow, now named Wilsons & Company Ltd, based in the Sharrow district of Sheffield, United Kingdom, is the world’s oldest manufacturer of snuff. The company was founded 1737...

 of snuff manufacturers. Wilson paid £3,500 for Tapton Hall, plus £1,424 for the furniture and £218 for the wine left in the cellar. The hall was owned by the Wilson family until the late 1950s, being lived in by George Wilson’s son George Kingsford Wilson (1853–1933) and then his grandson George Ronald Wilson (1888–1958).

Soon after the death of George Ronald Wilson in 1958 the hall was purchased by the Sheffield Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge

This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...

 who completely refurbished it and in 1967 added two large modern extensions to the east and west sides, designed by the architects Hadfield, Cawkwell, Davidson & Partners.

Present day

Today Tapton Hall is a Conference and banqueting centre which hosts wedding, civil ceremonies, corporate events and special occasions.

Architecture

The building is dominated by a large rounded two storey bow window

Bow window

A bow window is a curved bay window. Bow windows are designed to create space by projecting beyond the exterior wall of a building, and to provide a wider view of the garden or street outside and typically combine four or more casement windows, which join together to form an arch.Bow windows first...

 consisting of three sash window

Sash window

A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...

s on each floor. The hipped

Hip roof

A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...

 slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 roof is concealed by balustrade

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

s. The eastern entrance has a two storey square porch

Porch

A porch is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location...

. The interior has a grand entrance hall with an open well staircase with moulded segmental arches, modillion cornice and a roof light.