Church of St Mark, Broomhill, Sheffield

Broomhill grew up in the early 19th century as Sheffield experienced rapid population growth as a result of industrialisation. In order to serve the ecclesiastical needs of this new community, a church dedicated to St Mark was founded on the present site in 1854 with monies provided by steelmaker William Butcher. The first building was a prefabricated and galvanised iron structure, the type of which would commonly come to be referred to as a tin tabernacle. Always intended to be temporary, it survived only until 1868, when construction began on a grand stone building in Gothic Revival style designed by William Henry Crossland, typical of the era. Crossland's church was completed in 1871 and…

Pace's pragmatic design for St Mark's Church uses the architectural language of modernism to render a unified structure that, while incorporating the surviving Victorian Gothic Revival elements, is neither imitative nor subservient to them. This dialogue of styles was recognised by Nikolaus Pevsner as a specific strength of the design. Pace's new building for the site rises within a reinforced concrete frame, with cavity walls filled with rubble stone and artificial lintels and transoms, incorporating some old fabric up to plinth level. Both the north and south elevations are filled with a repeating pattern of narrow rectangular windows of varying height, their modern appearance clearly…