Recce No. 2 in Cressbrook Dale

 

A view of Peter's Stone on the path from Wardlow Mires to Mires Lane

Arriving in Cressbrook Dale, after having a good look at the geology and extensive remains of the lead mining industry in Tansley Dale, which is a Scheduled Monument, Stuart and I continued with our recce for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group June 2024 field trip. 

 

A view of Cressbrook Dale from the bottom of Tansley Dale

 

On the recce that I had undertaken with the group leader Paul in February, we had parked at Wardlow Mires and had only managed to explore the south side of Cressbrook Dale up to just beyond Peter’s Stone, where we found the Cressbrook Dale Lava along the footpath, before we aborted the day due to the flooding of the valley and a prior injury to Paul’s foot.

 

The stream crossing

 

Crossing the stream and passing the area of disturbed ground on the east side of the valley, which is also associated with lead mining, we continued north along the public footpath and stopped to look at the streambed, which is usually dry from this point to Wardlow Mires. 

 

A view of the dry streambed

 

The rocks, moss and other vegetation along the length of the streambed were lightly covered with a deposit of calcium carbonate, which reflects its nature as a winterbourne - as I had seen in February after an expended period of heavy rain. 

 

A dry valley cut by a tributary

 

Continuing northwards, we stopped to look at the dry tributary valley to Cressbrook Dale, where very subtle changes in the slope and the vegetation show areas where there has been soil creep down the valley. While looking at this, we were treated with a view of boxing hares on the hillside, but they were well out of reach of the zoom lens on my camera. 

 

An outcrop of the MDLF with Lithostrotion corals

 

Reaching the outcrop of Cressbrook Dale Lava in the path, where I found more outcrops that I had not noticed on the previous recce, we made our way up to Peter’s Stone, an example of a translational landslide, where I showed Stuart the examples of Lithostrotion corals in the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation (MDLF) that I had previously found and took in the panoramic view along the valley towards Wardlow Mires. 

 

A panoramic view of the north end of Cressbrook Dale

Following the path down to the valley, we encountered another part of the now dry streambed where the tufa like deposits were more like the encrustations that are developed in an extreme form in petrifying springs like the one at Matlock Bath. 

 

Tufa like encrustations in the streambed

 

We then looked for an opening in the dry stone wall that runs along the valley floor, with the intention of exploring the outcrops of the MDLF that are easily accessible on the north side of the valley. When visiting Cressbrook Dale back in 1995, as part of my assessment of the geotourism value of the Regional Important Geological Sites in the Peak District National Park, I found some spectacular silicified Lithostrotion coral and large blocks of cemented scree. 

 

Looking for Lithostrotion corals

 

From memory, I recall that I had seen these at quite a low level, where the dip of the MDLF is such that there are plenty of exposures not far from the valley bottom. We had a good look but were unable to find any corals or blocks of scree, but we did find a bed that was packed with brachiopod shells that Stuart described to me as a "death bed". 

 

The discovery of a "death bed"

 

Crossing back over the stream to the south side of Cressbrook Dale, we investigated a differentially weathered bed that looks very much like one that we had seen on the High Peak Trail a couple of years earlier, which proved to be a clay wayboard, but we found no evidence of weathered volcanic ash and carried on to Wardlow Mires. 

 

A view of Peter's Stone on the path from Wardlow Mires to Mires Lane

 

We walked for a short distance along the very busy A623 road, where there is no path, until we reached a public footpath that would take us across the fields and bring us on to Mires Lane. From here we had good views of Cressbrook Dale in both directions and particularly of Peter’s Stone from a completely different perspective.

 

A view down Cressbrook Dale

 
Arriving at Mires Lane, we were surprised to be stopped by a young African woman who asked to have her picture taken using her mobile phone, with Peter’s Stone in the background, before pausing at a layby to get views along the valley to Wardlow Mires and of the outline of the Cressbrook Dale Lava and Litton Tuff to the south and then heading back to Litton. 

 

A view up Cressbrook Dale from a layby on Mires Lane

A Geological Recce of Tansley Dale

A view up Tansley Dale

 

On a warm and sunny last day of April 2024, having not been out since my circular walk that included All Saints churchyard, an exploration of the building stones of Bents Green, a walk to Whirlow and then back to Ecclesall, I set out with my friend Stuart, who had co-led a field trip with me to the High Peak Trail a couple of years earlier, to undertake a recce for the June 2024 Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip. 

 

The circular route from Litton via Tansley Dale and Cressbrook Dale

 

I had previously undertaken a recce in February, which was cut short due to the fact that the valley was flooded after a period of exceptionally wet weather and that the group leader Paul, who I went with, had sustained an injury a few days before that turned out to be a broken toe. 

 

The first stile on the path from Litton to Tansley Dale

 

Arriving in Litton and checking the availability of parking, our first task was to assess the accessibility of the first two stiles on the route. Before the recce, I had contacted a Peak District walking group to ask if the water levels in Cressbrook Dale had subsided and someone had responded to tell me that she had found these quite difficult to negotiate without assistance. 

 

The second stile on the path from Litton

Most of the group members are in their 70’s and, although they need to have a decent degree of mobility and fitness to cope with the terrain that is typically encountered on a field trip, the U3A have increasingly emphasised that field trip leaders must undertake formal risk assessments and more - just one of the factors that has certainly led to my diminishing interest in this organisation.

 

The public footpath from Litton to Tansley Dale

Having agreed that these stiles wouldn’t present a problem for our members, we continued for a few hundred metres until we reached the head of Tansley Dale. I had never heard of this dale before but, when undertaking preliminary research, I discovered that it is a Scheduled Monument with descriptions of the former lead mining industry here being provided by Historic England and the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record. 

 

The approach to Tansley Dale

 

When the upper part of Tansley Dale came into view, I could clearly see the disturbed ground but Stuart, who had written his dissertation on lead mining in the Peak District as part of his joint honours geology and geography degree, was able to point out many more features.

 

A view down Tansley Dale

 

Continuing down Tansley Dale past the foundations of walls and waste rock that have largely become overgrown, on either side of the valley there are several entrances to adits which coincide with the position of the lead rakes on both sides. 

 

An entrance to an adit

The 1:50,000 British Geological Survey map shows that a series of rakes run west to east over from the head of Tansley Dale, which continue for a distance of nearly 5 km and workings on these are clearly visible on LIDAR maps. 

 

The geological map showing the lead rakes in and near Tansley Dale

 

Alongside the path, there are several small outcrops of the light facies of the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation (MDLF), which are shallow shelf deposits that very often contain brachiopods and corals. We did not notice any fossils, but there was an opportunity to take a measurement of the strike and dip on the exposed bedding planes, which Stuart compared to the measurements that are recorded on the maps that he had brought with him. 

 

Measuring the strike and dip

 

Immediately above the first adit that we encountered, a thick layer stands out as having a very rough and irregular texture that contrasts with the limestone above and below it. Getting close enough to touch it, the photo that I took shows what look like shrinkage structures that are orientated at right angles to the outcrop. 

Calcite crystals

We didn’t reach any conclusion about what we were looking at but, enlarging one of my photos, I can see rhombohedral cleavage, which is typical of the mineral calcite and suggests that this is part of the mineral vein that the lead miners were exploiting.

 

Examining calcite in a mineral vein

 

Continuing down the path past small areas of waste rock that are composed of lumps of the unfossiliferous dark facies of the MDLF, which was formed offshore in much deeper water, our next stop was an incongruous relatively level feature that was not natural and Stuart immediately recognised this as the main waste tip. 

 

A view down Tansley Dale while standing on the edge of a waste tip

 

My botanical knowledge is not great, but I know just enough to able to recognise wild orchids when I see them and, as I later discovered from the information panel at Tideswell Dale car park, the early purple variety were flourishing on the ground that had been undisturbed by lead mining. 

 

An early purple orchid

 

Making our way down to the end of Tansley Dale and looking back up the valley, another adit can be seen high up the hillside on its north side, with the position of the rake being marked by a linear feature of excavated ground above and below it.

 

A lead rake at the east end of Tansley Dale

 

A Walk From Whirlow to Ecclesall

 

An inscribed plaque at the entrance to Parkhead Hall

Setting off on the last leg of a walk that had so far included All Saints churchyard in Ecclesall, the building stones of Bents Green and the geology, geomorphology and historic architecture when walking from Bents Green to Whirlow, I immediately noticed the paving outside the entrance to Whinfell Quarry Garden.

 

The paving outside Whinfell Quarry Garden

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On the 1854 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, this quarry is specifically marked as producing "Flag Stones" and I strongly suspect that, since they look nothing like the paving stone once quarried from the Greenmoor Rock at Green Moor and Brincliffe Edge, they are an example of locally quarried Rough Rock. 

 

Buildings at the Hollis Hospital

 

Continuing with my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, from a distance I took a few photos of the various Grade II Listed buildings forming part of the Hollis Hospital (1903), but these have nothing of interest to this Language of Stone Blog and I carried on along Ecclesall Road South until I came to the next building on my list, Whirlow Court (c.1870). 

 

A gatepier at Whirlow Court

 

Beyond the entrance, with its massive sandstone ornate gatepiers, I could only make out parts of this Tudor Revival style small country house, particularly its crenellated central tower and turret and just took a couple of general record photos. 

 

Whirlow Court

 

I walked for another 500 metres along the road and arrived at Parkhead Hall (1865), where again I could only get partial views of this Grade II Listed country house, with its adjoining stable yard and coach house, from the raised path on the opposite side of the road. 

 

Views of Parkhead House from Ecclesall Road South

 

Originally named The Woodlands and designed in a Gothic Revival style by the Sheffield architect J.B. Mitchell-Withers for his own use and, after his death in 1894, the house was sold to the metallurgist Sir Robert Hadfield, who renamed it Parkhead House and extended it in 1900 and 1903, employing the architects R.G. Hammond of the Strand in London and Wyngard, Dixon & Sandford for this work respectively. 

Boundary walls on Ecclesall Road South

During my walk along Ecclesall Road South from Whirlow Quarry Garden, although I had not been stopping to closely examine the sandstones used in the various boundary walls, I did make a note of their general physical features and the planar bedded sandstone to the parts of Parkhead Hall that I could see and its boundary wall looks similar to the Crawshaw Sandstone that I had seen in very many Sheffield Board Schools and also in Victorian churches. 

 

The Crawshaw Sandstone between Whirlow and Parkhead

 

A disused quarry on the Crawshaw Sandstone was marked on the 1854 6 inch map on a site that the 1894 edition shows as the entrance to The Woodlands; however, at the time the house was built, the Crawshaw Sandstone quarries at Bole Hill were the biggest suppliers of sandstone in Sheffield and Mitchell-Withers would no doubt have previously specified this stone.

 

A view of Parkhead Hall through the entrance gates

 

I could only get a glimpse of the house through the entrance gates, which have massive sandstone gatepiers that I presume to be Chatsworth Grit. After taking a few photos, I then set off down Abbey Lane to find the path through Wood 1 in Ecclesall Woods to Dobcroft Road.

 

The entrance gates at Parkhead Hall

Following the public footpath on the northern perimeter, I encountered one of several streams that flow across the underlying Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) strata, where the streambed is littered with blocks of sandstone and weathered mudstone, in the form of yellow clay, is exposed in its banks. 

 

Weathered mudstone and sandstone blocks in a stream

Leaving Ecclesall Woods at the Dobcroft Road entrance, I followed a snicket to Millhouses Lane, where I stopped to photograph Wood Cottage, which was built in the second half of the C19 with what looks to me like flaggy Rough Rock walling and a stone slate roof. 

 

Wood Cottage

 

The boundary wall to No. 230 Millhouses Lane, with its dark brown rather than rusty orange/brown iron staining, looks more like the Greenmoor Rock, which was quarried at Brincliffe Edge. I didn’t examine the stone with a hand lens to determine if it is has a typically fine grained texture and instead was more interested to note the pebbly Chatsworth Grit used for the coping stones. 

 

The boundary wall at No. 230 Millhouses Lane

Retracing my steps to Button Lane, Mylnhust Convent School is set in private grounds and I could not get access but its Grade II Listed lodge (1883), which looks like another example of Crawshaw Sandstone, was easily accessible. 

 

The lodge at Mylnhurst Convent School

 

For this leg of my walk, I didn’t get the opportunity to look closely at the large houses on my Photo Challenge, which would have given a better understanding of the building stones used in this part of Sheffield and I sneaked a look at The Cottage. 

The Cottage

On another good day out in Sheffield, I had traversed the Loxley Edge Rock, the Rough Rock, the Crawshaw Sandstone and minor unnamed PLCMF sandstones, which I assume have all been used locally for boundary walls and that this accounts for the variation in colours and textures that that I had seen, although very few quarries are marked on the old OS maps to give clues to the provenance of the stone used. 

 

A boundary wall on Woodholm Road

 

A Walk From Bents Green to Whirlow

 

An information board at Whirlow Hall Farm

It only took me 20 minutes to have a quick look at the historic architecture of Bents Green, where the main building stones are the Loxley Edge Rock, the Rough Rock and the Chatsworth Grit. I then set off to find the public footpath to Whirlow and soon came across Thryft House, which was the first building on my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. 

 

Thryft House

 

This mid C17 farmhouse and cottage is set below the adjacent lane and a high hedge obscures all but the eaves and the stone slate roof. I sneaked a photo from the entrance and obtained partial views by standing on various walls and fences, which provided information to make the think that this is another example of the use of the Rough Rock for walling and the roof. 

 

Thryft House

 

The public footpath skirts the Castle Dyke playing field, which are set on relatively level ground at an average elevation of about 270 metres that is underlain by the Rough Rock, which dips at 6 degrees to the north-east according to the British Geological Survey map. 

 

A topographic map of the landscape seen from Castle Dyke playing field

Looking to the north-east, beyond the interwar housing of Bents Green, in my photo I can make out Tinsley Viaduct and the Blackburn Meadows Power Station at a distance of 12 km and beyond this along the Don Valley is the Aldwarke steelworks in Rotherham at 18 km, with the hills formed by the Parkgate Rock in the distance. 

 

The view north-east towards Tinsley Viaduct and beyond

 

To the east, at a distance of just over 6 km, the immediately recognisable Herdings Park twin towers are clearly visible on the skyline. Set on an outcrop of an unnamed Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) sandstone at an elevation of 228 metres, this distinctive landmark is visible from many parts of Sheffield. 

 

A view of the Herdings twin towers

 

A little further to the north is the Gleadless Valley, where an essentially rural valley cut into the PLCMF mudstones and shales - now drained by the Meers Brook and its tributaries - was transformed by a large scale housing development between 1955 and 1962. 

 

A panoramic view across the Gleadless Valley

Continuing down the path, a dry stone wall is built with a quite thinly bedded sandstone that I wouldn’t quite describe as typically flaggy, but which would be very likely to have been quarried from the Rough Rock at the quarries at Whirlow that mainly produced flagstones, one of which is now the Whinfell Quarry Garden. 

 

A dry stone wall adjacent to the path from Bents Green to Whirlow

Arriving at Broad Elms Lane, I went to find the late C18 Grade II Listed Whirlow Farmhouse, which I could only photograph at a distance from the entrance to its drive. Enlarging my only photo, I can see that most of the walling stone is laid in courses that are of approximately the same size as a brick, but the gable end in the centre of the elevation is built with larger blocks.

 

Whirlow Farmhouse

 

I then continued to the large complex of agricultural buildings at Whirlow Hall Farm, which is now occupied by the Whirlow Hall Farm Trust – an educational charity for inner city children and others that struggle in mainstream education.

 

Whirlow Hall Farm

 

Only part of the complex, which dates back to the late C18 and early C18 with C19 additions, is Grade II Listed and this comprises a cottage, cowshed, a cruck barn and a bull pen and I just took a few general record photographs of these. 

 

The listed buildings at Whirlow Hall Farm

 

I didn’t examine the stone closely with my hand lens but, from my high resolution photos, I can see that the blotchy iron stained walling stone is clearly plane bedded and the thin laminations are quite typical of the Rough Rock that is found in Sheffield. In contrast, the massive quoins and dressings are greyish in colour and are clearly made from the Chatsworth Grit. 

 

A house with pebbly Chatsworth Grit dressings at Whirlow Hall Farm

Leaving the courtyard after taking photos of the listed buildings, I continued up Broad Elms Lane to look at another range of farm buildings that serve various functions for the Whirlow Hall Farm Trust. A substantial house that I though would be listed was the only building that caught my eye, not least for the use of very coarse grained Chatsworth Grit for the main door surround. 

 

A view along Fenney Lane

 

I continued by walking down towards the A625 along Fenney Lane, which is an ancient holloway and, before the construction of a new turnpike road c.1820 at Ringinglow, was one of the main roads out of Sheffield to Fox House and into Derbyshire. 

 

A view towards the Eastern Moors

 

Briefly stopping to take in the view of the Eastern Moors to the south-west, I carried on down Fenney Lane and passed a tree where fine grained flaggy Rough Rock, which in places consisted of poorly cemented orange sand, could be seen exposed beneath its root system. 

 

The Rough Rock exposed beneath tree roots

 

A little further down Fenney Lane, I went into Whinfell Quarry Garden by the top gate with the intention of finding a memorial by Steve Roche, a stone carver and letter cutter who I had proposed for a potential piece of pubic art at Boston Park in Rotherham. The memorial to Stephen Doncaster (d.2018) is made of Woodkirk stone from the Thornhill Rock near Morley, but it was covered in lichens and I could not determine its colour and texture. 

 

The memorial to Stephen Doncaster

 

I had visited Whinfell Quarry Garden a few times before and, through the efforts of the Friends of Whinfell Quarry Garden, it had become more impressive over the years. I had a quick walk around and, apart from seeing the skunk cabbage in flower, I discovered that gypsum has been used in the landscaping and I obtained a couple of loose pieces to add to my growing rock collection. 

 

Specimens of the Rough Rock and gypsum