Historic Sheffield coffee house set to be partly demolished despite pleas to save it
The former Mappins Coffee House on London Road, Highfield is part of a plan to build an apartment complex
A Sheffield building that housed a historic former coffee house is set to be partially demolished despite appeals by heritage groups to save it.
The former Mappins Coffee House on London Road, Highfield is part of a plan to build an apartment complex that will also have commercial units. Heritage groups have for three years spoken out against the proposal, that initially would have seen the building demolished.
The scheme is up for approval at a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s planning and highways committee next Tuesday (January 13).
Council planning officers are recommending approval for the proposal.
The project also involves an office building to the rear on Broom Close and the site of the former Tramway pub on London Road, which was already demolished.
A new building behind the coffee house facade would house commercial units on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors.
The existing roof would be replaced by a contemporary mansard-style hipped two-storey roof which would house a number of flats. This is to make the scheme financially viable, the report says.
A new building that is four to six storeys high on the vacant plot next door will house apartments. The four-storey Broom Close office building would be redeveloped to become more residential units.
The former coffee house is currently protected by the council as a ‘non-designated heritage asset’. This was put in place following the submission of the original plan to prevent demolition of the building without full planning approval.
A report to the committee says: “The design of the scheme has been significantly amended during the course of the application so as to avoid the complete demolition of the former Cocoa/Coffee House.
“Whilst the scheme under consideration still includes for demolition of parts
of the building, the intention now is to retain and restore the historic elevations.”
Following submission of the revised scheme for planning permission, objections came from 25 people and three people supported the proposals.
The scheme is also opposed by the council’s heritage champion Coun Janet Ridler, Hallamshire Historic Buildings, the Victorian Society, the Council for British Archaeology and the 20th Century Society.
Sheffield Conservation Advisory Group say that “the application has not been well thought through. The proposed two-storey mansard is inappropriate and the proposed adjoining block is too high and would dwarf the existing building.
“It is felt one additional mansard and a lower block on the corner site, similar in height to the existing building and not projecting in front of it, might be acceptable.
“The group sees no reason why the 1960s mosaic should be pointlessly overpainted.”
The heritage building opened in 1877 as the Highfield Cocoa and Coffee House and was also known as Mappins Coffee House. It was financed by city Victorian cutlery and steel magnate Sir Frederick Mappin.
The coffee house movement was inspired by the temperance movement and aimed to provide an alternative to the pub for working-class people.
The building contained reading rooms, a billiard room and a skittle alley. The report to the committee says it was the first in Sheffield but eventually there were 15 in the city.
The Cocoa House closed in 1908 and in the 1950s when it became a showroom for George Barlow & Sons shopfitters, with a confectioner’s on the ground floor.
Barlow’s made changes to the façade, including the addition of small grey and white mosaic tiles to the ground floor facade and decorative concrete frieze panels in the 1960s.
The report says that the friezes echo details in the original terracotta mouldings. They also feature abstract cocoa pods, linking the artworks with the building’s history, plus references to the city steel industry.