St Silas Church is a former

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

built in 1867 in Broomhall,

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, England. It was under the administration of the

Diocese of Sheffield The Diocese of Sheffield is an administrative division of the Church of England, part of the Province of York. The Diocese of Sheffield was created under George V on 23 January 1914, by the division from the Diocese of York (along with that pa ...

from its creation in 1914 until the closure of the church in 2000.

History

St Silas Church, named after Saint Silas, was built in 1867. The first vicar of the church was Charles Sisum Wright. It was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

for use as a church in 1869. The building was designated a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

structure on 28 July 1973. On 1 December 2000, the church was closed after 133 years of continuous operation. The

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

acquired ownership of the Church in 2006 with the intention of converting it into a local medical centre and offices with the adjacent vicarage to be used as a car park. However, this plan never came to fruition. In 2014, Claypenny Properties received permission from the

Bishop of Sheffield The Bishop of Sheffield is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Sheffield in the Province of York. A similar title was first created as a suffragan see in the Diocese of York in 1901. John Quirk, the only Bishop suffragan of Shef ...

to convert a portion of the building into student accommodation flats.

Architecture

The church was built in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

in a

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style of masonry which was a popular architectural movement at the time. A large four-panelled

stained glass window Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

on the northern facade of the church tower depicts four stories from the Bible and three archangels. There are several other stained glass windows around the church which are in-keeping with the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

style of the main one. A plaque in memorial of those who died in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the original altar are among the objects which remain in the church at present.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Silas Church Sheffield Churches in Sheffield 19th-century Church of England church buildings Former Church of England church buildings Former churches in Yorkshire Gothic Revival architecture in South Yorkshire Grade II listed churches in South Yorkshire