Stannington is a suburb of Sheffield to the west of the city centre, located on the hill between the River Rivelin and River Loxley. There is evidence of Roman occupation of the area which comes from tablets found on the Stannington side of the Rivelin Valley which record the granting of land to retiring Roman auxiliaries of the Sunuci tribe. Other evidence of nearby Roman occupation comes from finds on Walkley Bank Road, which leads onto the ridge facing Stannington. The village has grown from the two settlements of Upper Gate and Nethergate. The settlement was mentioned in medieval times when a charter was granted to all men of Stannington and Morewood giving them the right to gather green and dry wood and turn out their cattle throughout the whole forest in Rivelin for a payment of four pounds in silver yearly. Stannington cross dates from the same period, Harrison's survey of 1637 describes it as a "stump cross of medieval origin". The date of erection has been estimated as 13th or 14th century, it stands at the junction of Oldfield Road and Stannington Road. Stannington officially became part of Sheffield in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Previous to that it had been part of Wortley Rural District and was on the boundary of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The village of Stannington, which is part of the original Wortley district and marked by the "Rural District of Wortley" sign at the junction of Oldfield Road and Stannington Road; and the newer conurbations of Deer Park and Roscoe Bank primarily grew out from Malin Bridge from the 1960s onwards. Significant buildings in the area include the Christ Church parish church on Church Street; the Unitarian chapel, Underbank Chapel; and the country house, Revell Grange; all of which are Grade II listed structures. Stannington is served by bus route 81 from Sheffield and by services 61 and 62 which provide a link with the local villages of Dungworth, Low and High Bradfield, Loxley and the Sheffield suburbs of Malin Bridge and Hillsborough where journeys may be continued to Sheffield by Sheffield Supertram. The area is also home to Stannington branch library, but this facility no longer has a professionally staffed, council-run library service, having been run by volunteers since the council threatened the branch with closure in 2014. This was despite vocal opposition from campaign group Sheffield Communities Against Library Privatisation, which argued that "only a first rate, professionally run and publicly funded library service is good enough for our city". Book loans reduced considerably following the handover to volunteers. In addition issues regarding the library's volunteer application form allegedly not asking for references and the volunteer library allegedly accidentally publishing postcodes of respondents to a consultation on its website have also been highlighted on social media.
Industry
During the early 1800s, the Stannington area together with the nearby Loxley Valley became an important producer of refractory bricks for the expanding Sheffield steel industry. The bricks were used to line the furnaces and were made from ganister, a sort of sandstone, and more importantly from fireclay from the Stannington pot clay seam which was prevalent in the area. Many ganister and fireclay mines and quarries existed in the area with the major ones being owned by the local firms of Siddons Brothers. and J & J Dyson which sprang up in the district. Refractory material production began c. 1810 and ceased in 2012. Dyson's works along with those of Thos. Wragg and Thos. Marshall specialised in manufacturing fireclay-based casting pit refractory holloware and ladle flow control bricks for the steel industry worldwide. All three refractory plants closed following a collapse in demand for casting pit refractories of the uphill teeming type made locally mainly because of the introduction of continuous casting of steel worldwide and the general decline of the British steel industry.
