Extensive Views And Hidden Halls

Mike Smith journeys to Holmesfield, an ancient manor on the hills south-west of Sheffield

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The website of Penny Acres Primary School, which is situated on an elevated site above the village of Holmesfield, carries a lyrical description of the local landscape as ‘a rolling sea of undulating hills and moorland’. One side of the school looks south across a patchwork of green fields and hedgerows to the Cordwell Valley, whilst the other side looks west towards the orange-tinted eastern moorlands of the Peak District. The focus shifts again in the large areas of countryside visible from St Swithin’s Church, located on a knoll at the centre of the village. The view to the north looks across Totley Moor towards the leafy suburbs of Sheffield, whilst an equally extensive view to the south-east takes in, on a clear day, the outlines of Chesterfield’s gravity-defying twisted spire, the tall towers of

Bess of Hardwick’s grandiose house and the château-like castle at Bolsover. Collectively, this quartet of extensive views encompasses many of the varied elements that make up the English landscape.

Although St Swithin’s Church stands 800-feet above sea level on the site of a Christian settlement founded by monks in AD 641, the present building was constructed in 1826. The church is a rather strange building architecturally, with a nave featuring large Georgian-style windows that are at odds with the Gothic appearance of the pinnacled tower. The chancel was added in 1895 and the church hall, linked to the church by a glass atrium, was added in 2011 to host baptism and birthday parties, wedding receptions, funeral teas, talks, conferences and a variety of other functions.