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| A view from the east end of Hunshelf Bank |
A few days after my day out to Elsecar, when I learned a lot about the industry and its historic architecture, I returned to the borough of Barnsley to look at some more geology – this time to accompany Barry, a retired chemist, on a recce of Hunshelf for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip in August 2022.
Barry is a resident of Green Moor and very knowledgeable about the archaeology and industrial history of the surrounding parish of Hunshelf and, although he had arranged a previous trip to Wharncliffe Crags and Wortley Top Forge, he asked me for help on the geology. Having surveyed the area in 1997 for the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group, advised Shepherd Homes on the Stoneway Manor development in 2013/2014 and led our group on a field trip to Green Moor in 2017, I was pleased to help.
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| The former Wortley railway station |
Having managed to get from Treeton to Deepcar, involving trips on two buses and the Supertram, Barry drove us to the Cote Green car park, which is just a short walk to the old Wortley railway station. It was opened in 1845 by the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway on the line from Penistone to Sheffield Victoria station, but closed in 1955.
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| The railway bridge at Wortley station |
This railway was instrumental in the expansion of the quarrying industry in Green Moor, which once supplied the best quality paving stone from the Greenmoor Rock to the rest of England - with the Green Moor Wharf on the River Thames in London being built to accommodate this trade.
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| Stepping stones on the River Don |
Carrying on past the site of Wortley Mill to the River Don, with its stepping stones, we then took the footpath above the mill pond at Wortley Tin Mill, continuing up the steep slope at Tin Mill Rocher, without seeing any rock outcrop until we reached the eastern end of Hunshelf Bank.
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| A delf at the east end of Hunshelf Bank |
Now on the south facing escarpment of the Greenmoor Rock, a small delf exposes very irregular thin beds of sandstone, which is only suitable for dry stone boundary walls. I had seen similar outcrops further to the west, during our previous visit to Green Moor and also further to the south along Birley Edge.
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| The information panel at Delf Quarry |
Our next stop was the old quarry face in the Delf Quarry, which I proposed should be a RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Site), as a much better example of the Greenmoor Rock than the very small spur of rock seen in the car park to the former Rock Inn, which was removed when the Stoneway Manor housing estate was built.
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| The Delf Quarry |
The site was moderately overgrown at the time of our visit, but it is regularly maintained by Hunshelf Parish Council and Barry assured me that, before our field trip, it would be cleared to reveal the large scale cross-bedding here – a sedimentary structure that I usually associate with much coarser grained sandstones laid down in a large river channel.
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| Large scale cross-bedding seen in the quarry face |
The Greenmoor Rock is typically very fine grained and planar bedded, which is unusual amongst the major sandstone formations in the Pennine Coal Measures Group of South Yorkshire. Obtaining a couple of small samples with my Estwing hammer, I was interested to note that their grain size is no different to several other specimens in my rock collection.
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| Specimens of Greenmoor Rock from Delf Quarry |
Although most of the Greenmoor Rock at Hunshelf was once quarried on a vast scale for its top quality paving stone, as in Sheffield where it is called the Brincliffe Edge Rock, it has been used in the hamlet of Green Moor to build its vernacular architecture.
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| Greenmoor Rock used as a building stone |
With lunchtime approaching, we then headed past the cricket ground to the Isle of Skye Quarry, which was purchased by the parish council. Although it has been infilled and is now covered in heather and gorse, large blocks of massive Greenmoor Rock are lying around the site.
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| The Isle of Skye Quarry |
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