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| A plaque at the site of the old Cusworth Hall |
For my first day out in October 2022, having spent an afternoon in Bakewell to photograph various listed buildings a few days earlier, I decided to head out to Doncaster again to visit Cusworth Hall Museum and Park, which involved a 10 minute bus journey from Doncaster Interchange.
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| A map showing the locations of Treeton and Cusworth |
Alighting from the No. 41 bus from Doncaster at the Cusworth Lane/Filby Road stop, I walked along Cusworth Lane for just over 100 metres past later C20 brick houses until I reached the junction with Back Lane, which forms the continuation of the main road.
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| The geology and topography around Cusworth |
Although I didn’t realise this at the time, from the moment the bus turned off York Road onto Cusworth Lane and headed in a south-westerly direction, it followed the boundary between the dolomitic limestone of the Brotherton Formation and the reddish brown mudstone and siltstone of the younger Roxby Formation.
The online GeoIndex Onshore map viewer doesn’t show this at the 1:50,000 scale, but this linear feature, which is also reflected in the topography, is a continuation of the South Don Fault with a downthrow to the south-east. It forms part of a regionally important structure known as the Don Monocline, which largely controls the course of the River Don between Sheffield and Doncaster and also includes the North Don Fault.
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| The Cusworth Conservation Area |
Continuing down Cusworth Lane, I soon arrived at the boundary of the Cusworth Conservation Area, which includes the old village, the Grade I Listed Cusworth Hall and the parkland around it, which forms part of a much larger area of the original estate that has national historic interest.
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| Manor Cottage |
To the right hand side on rising ground, Manor Cottage, which is probably late C17, is one of three Grade II Listed buildings in the old village of Cusworth, which are built of limestone rubble with red pantile roofs, as are the rest of the buildings in the Conservation Area - both old and new.
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| The Mistal |
Next to this is The Mistal, a mid C18 cowhouse that has been converted to a house and has its stone slate eaves course, as also seen at Manor Cottage, replaced with concrete tiles. I did not get close enough to look at the limestone but, judging by the boundary walls, massive limestone from the Cadeby Formation and not thinly bedded limestone from the Brotherton Formation has been used for both of these buildings.
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| Views of the Manor House |
The C17 Manor House has the same pattern of building materials, including stone slate eaves, which is quite typical of the vernacular architecture that I have seen along the length of the Magnesian Limestone, from Knaresborough to Palterton.
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| The British Orthodox Church |
On the south side of Cusworth Lane, the C20 houses are not within the Conservation Area and the graveyard of the unlisted British Orthodox Church of St. Mark and St. Hubert next caught my eye, where the various headstones are of a very small size compared to most others that I have seen in various churchyards and cemeteries.
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| Vernacular architecture in Cusworth |
I took a very quick look at the houses at the west end of Cusworth Lane and then, after following it beyond the right angle bend, continued up past various traditionally built houses to Back Lane and then made my way to the entrance lodge at Cusworth Hall.
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| The entrance lodge at Cusworth Hall |
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