St. Marie's Cathedral Church in Sheffield

 

A detail of the effigy of Fr. Charles Pratt

 

My visit to Walkley to take advantage of the properties opened for the Heritage Open Days festival of 2024 wasn’t very successful and I made a mental note to return the following year, when all of the buildings are open and hopefully the lighting conditions in St. Mary’s church will be better.

 

A view from Fargate

Alighting from the No. 95 bus in Sheffield city centre, I made my way down Norfolk Row to the Gothic Revival style Grade II* listed Cathedral Church of St. Marie (1847-1850), designed by Weightman and Hadfield, which is built on a very restricted site and is not easy to photograph.

 

A view up the tower

I had walked down Norfolk Row very many times over the years, without taking much notice of it, but since taking an interest in the building stones used for Sheffield’s historic architecture while undertaking my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenges, I had become very curious about the yellowish Upper Carboniferous sandstone that is used for the walling.

 

A view along the south elevation

Since leaving Walkley, the very gloomy weather hadn’t improved and, although I didn’t stop to examine the stonework, I have often thought that this could well be Grenoside Sandstone, but I haven’t seen any documentation to confirm this.

 

The sculpture of the Annunciation by Thomas Earp

 

At the south-east corner of the cathedral, at the junction of Norfolk Row and Norfolk Street, there are various extensions – one of which is decorated with a deep relief sculpture, which is set in a canopied niche with two ogee arches and cinquefoils. The long Historic England (HE) description, with its usual complete lack of sentences and paragraphs, provides no information about these and although the cathedral website has a photo of the sculpture, it is not annotated.

 

A detail of the sculpture of the Annunciation

 

 Referring to the Pevsner Architectural Guide for Sheffield, Ruth Harman says that the building is a sacristy that was added in 1879 by M.E. Hadfield and Son. She adds that the sculpture is the Annunciation and made by Thomas Earp’s studio and, looking at the pale cream colour of the stone, my educated guess is that Ancaster limestone from Lincolnshire has been used for this.

 

A view along the nave to the chancel

 
Entering by the south porch, where Heritage Opens Days banners had been placed, I expected to be greeted by a volunteer - as had been my experience at every property that I have visited during many of these festivals – but I could not find a single person in the cathedral who might be able to provide some help and I didn't see any printed guide for a tourist. 

 

A shrine made with alabaster and Frosterley and Derbyshire marbles

 

I had been informed that the cathedral has a set of C15 alabaster relief sculptures and also that there is an example of the use of Frosterley marble from County Durham, which I have seen used as flooring in the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Leeds and in the C12 font at the Church of St. Mary and All Saints in Chesterfield. Wandering around the cathedral, I found this in the colonnettes of what I presume to be some kind of shrine, with back panels made of alabaster.

 

A Frosterley mable colonnette

 

The principal feature of Frosterley marble is the abundance of large solitary rugose corals set in an a black micritic matrix, the like of which I have seen in the field at Mullaghmore in Co. Sligo in the Republic of Ireland and at Hob's House landslip in Monsal Dale, Derbyshire.

Derbyshire fossil 'marble' with crinoid stems

This structure is topped with a slab of Lower Carboniferous Derbyshire fossil 'marble', from the Peak District National Park, which contains large crinoid stems that are also broken down into their ossicle components. The limestone formed as knoll reefs, which are common in the Eyam Limestone Formation, and was once widely quarried and polished as a decorative stone but the only supplier now is at Rowsley, which still obtains Mandale stone from the Once-a-week Quarry.

 

A column made with Derbyshire fossil 'marble'

 
Having a very quick look around the chancel and sanctuary, I noticed that crinoidal limestone has also been used for several columns, but I didn’t see it anywhere else. Continuing my wander, an altar in the mortuary chapel is made of what I thought was probably a green marble but, looking closely at my photo, I am wondering if it might actually be scagliola. 

 

The altar in the mortuary chapel

 

There is also an effigy of Fr. Charles Pratt (d.1849) by Thomas Earp that is holding a model of the church, which was heavily influenced by St. Andrew’s church in Heckington, Lincolnshire. I didn’t look at the material that it is made of, which seems to be coated with a grey pigment and the angel on the corner looks like it has been replaced. 

 

A detail of the effigy of Fr. Charles Pratt

 

HE state that it is made of alabaster but, as described in my recent post on the architecture in Huddersfield, in my experience their field workers very often make schoolboy errors when trying to identify the stone used in a building.

 

A headstop 

 
Ruth Harman also mentions that the reredos in St. Joseph’s chapel, also by Thomas Earp, is made of Caen stone and that green Pyrenean marble has been used for the shrine in this chapel and other marbles can be seen around the cathedral.

A headstop

On this occasion, I just took a few photos of the headstops and grotesques when leaving by the south porch but I will make a point of coming back in the near future and make a formal appointment to see the alabaster carvings.

 

A grotesque

Heritage Open Days in Walkley

 

A view along the nave at St. Mary's church

On the day after undertaking a recce for the Nether Edge Festival and having another quick walk through Sheffield General Cemetery, I returned to Sheffield on the second day of the 2024 Heritage Open Days festival, with an intention of visiting some of the places that were open in Walkley. 

 

Walkley Community Centre

 

The first of these was the Walkley Community Centre, which although not a listed building was originally built in 1909 as the Walkley Reform Club and is an important community venue. It still has its original features and fittings and war memorial glass in the snooker room, but when I arrived it was not yet open to the general public.

 

The datestone at Walkley Community Centre

 

The Walkley Ebenezer Methodist Church was not yet open either and so I proceeded to the Grade II listed St. Mary’s church, which I had only briefly photographed from the outside during a previous visit to Walkley as part of a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge.

 

St. Mary's church

It was a very overcast day and I didn’t take much notice of the details of the exterior but, according to the Pevsner Architectural Guide to Sheffield by Ruth Harman, the chancel and 2 bays of a mission church were built in 1861 and the nave, aisles, north-west tower and broach spire were added in 1869 by John Grey Weightman, in association with T.A. Wilson in 1869. 

 

The tower of St. Mary's church

I just took a few more general record photographs before entering the church and going to find the Walkley Historians, who I had met a few times at the Sheffield Heritage Fair and had suggested that I give a talk or lead a walk for them. 

 

St. Mary's church

 

The interior of the church was really gloomy and, with much of the masonry plastered over except for the arcades, I just took a few photographs of the nave and the arcades. I didn’t look at these closely, but the massive nature of the drums to the columns suggests that this is Chatsworth Grit, which is used as dressings to the Crawshaw Sandstone walling in the external fabric. 

 

The west arcade

Moving into the chancel, which is fully plastered, I had a quick look around to see if there were any decorative stones, as I had often seen in later Victorian churches, but I saw nothing of interest to this Language of Stone Blog. 

 

The chancel

When returning to the nave, however, the very fine grained texture and very pale cream colour of the pulpit (1901) caught my eye and it made me immediately think that it is made of Caen stone, as has been used for the font and reredos at St. John’s church (1887) in Ranmoor.

 

The pulpit

 

Although not an expert in decorative stones, I was interested to see that the pulpit  has colonnettes that I think might be made of the polished limestones, Cork Red and Ashburton ‘marbles’, and a true marble from Connemara, but I didn’t get good photographs in the poor light. 

Colonnettes on the font

Sheffield General Cemetery Revisited

 

The monument to Eliza West and Charles Cann

Having quickly completed my recce for the Nether Edge Festival, I wanted to make the most of the sunshine and headed off to south-west entrance to Sheffield General Cemetery, stopping briefly to photograph the Grade II Listed Montague House (c.1836) – one of the three structures thought to be by Samuel Worth and built with coarse grained and often pebbly Chatsworth Grit. 

 

Montague House

 

I have briefly visited Sheffield General Cemetery on several occasions, with the last time being on the November 2023 Sheffield U3A Geology field trip, when the afternoon walk around Nether Edge was effectively cancelled due to the very cold weather – as briefly described in my report on a recce of Cressbrook Dale – but I have never fully explored it. 

 

The map of Sheffield General Cemetery

 

Making my way down the path to Sandford’s Walk, I then continued down the path at the top of the catacombs (1836), which had fallen into a state of considerable disrepair and were restored during the programme of refurbishment of the cemetery from 2021 to 2023. 

 

An information board explaining the history of the catacombs

 

I had previously walked along the path beneath the catacombs, but had never realised that in 1937 a third tier was added using 140 burial boxes made of reinforced concrete. By the turn of the C19, severe cracks had become apparent in the stonework of the lower parts, and the boxes were removed to improve the structural stability during the restoration, with one now on display.

 

A detail of the retained concrete burial box

 

Continuing down the walkway, I stopped briefly to have a quick look at the memorial to Eliza West (d.1916) and her husband Charles Cann (d.1929), which is built with two different granites. During the Heritage Open Days event in 2023, led by Peter Kennett, I was too busy taking photos to hear Peter describe these and he does not mention them in the geological trail published in 2001. 

 

The monument to Eliza West and Charles Cann

 

The dark red granite looks to me like the variety from the Ross of Mull, which is the largest peninsula on the Isle of Mull off the west coast of Scotland. The grey variety might be from Aberdeen, but the granite from the Rubislaw Quarry, which is the most well known granite from this area, is typically a darker grey in colour. 

 

A detail of the granites at the Eliza West and Charles Cann monument

 

Reaching the end of the walkway, I then headed along the Robert Marnock pathway past the catacombs until I reached the Stone Spiral, which was designed by Adrian Hallam and installed in 2024 using sandstones, crinoidal limestone, dolomitic limestone, granites and slate from the UK. 

 

The Stone Spiral

As seen in the photograph used for the accompanying Rock in the General Cemetery leaflet, the large lumps of rock used for this wonderful educational resource have since been obscured by a natural patina, dirt and algae, which makes it very difficult to identify each type of stone. 

 

The Rock in the General Cemetery leaflet

At the Montague Street entrance to the cemetery, there is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) screen wall, which commemorates the 40 military personnel that perished during WWI. Sheffield General Cemetery was considered too dilapidated to have CWGC headstones there and the screen wall was placed in Sheffield City Cemetery, but it was relocated to its present site in 2015.

The screen wall

A Recce for the Nether Edge Festival

 

King's Centre

 

In December 2021, as part of one of my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenges in south-west Sheffield, I walked through Nether Edge from Machon Bank Road to Sheffield General Cemetery via Union Road and Cherry Tree Road. On the 12th, 13th and 17th February 2023, I finally got round to writing my Language Stone Blog posts that record my observations of the historic architecture and the building stones used in their construction. 

 

The route of my Photo Challenge for Nether Edge

 

Based on these and other posts that I had written about the old quarries at Brincliffe Edge and on Ecclesall Road and the Sheffield General Cemetery. I was approached by the Nether Edge History Group to ask if I could give a talk on this subject. Mainly because of the irregularity and unreliability of the buses that serve Treeton in the evening, this never happened but eventually I was asked to lead a walk as part of the 2024 Nether Edge Festival. 

 

A walk during the Nether Edge Festival

My intention was to start at the old quarry off Brincliffe Lane, formerly occupied by the Baldwin Omega restaurant, which has been redeveloped as Chelsea Heights and then finish at the Kenwood Hall Hotel. I had previously undertaken a recce for a Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip, which didn’t happen, but I decided to spend an afternoon in Sheffield to follow on from my trip to Thorpe Hesley and Chapeltown the weekend before. 

 

The west elevation of Bluecoat House

Alighting from the No. 218 bus at the Psalter Lane/Brincliffe Gardens stop, I firstly went to see if I could see any of any of the old quarry faces in the back gardens of the houses on Bluecoat Rise, but these aren’t visible from the public rights of way. 

 

The north elevation of Bluecoat House

Having attended Christ’s Hospital school, I was nevertheless very interested to discover Bluecoat House (c.1912), a former Blue Coat charity school that was relocated from East Parade in the city centre, but which has since been converted into apartments. 

 

The Boys' Charity Shown on the 1923 Ordnance Survey map

 

Although I can barely make out the inscriptions, a couple of plaques on the north elevation record some of the history of this school - founded in 1710 - and its benefactors, which include the Duke of Norfolk and Joseph Banks of Scofton. 

 

Plaques removed from the Boys' Charity School on Eastgate Parade

 

On my previous recce, I had another good look at the principal buildings on this route, but on this occasion I wanted to have a look at some of the larger houses built on Chelsea Road during the second half of the C19, which I did not see at the time.

 

Coping stones used for the surround to a garden gate

Continuing along Psalter Lane, I crossed over the road to have a quick look at the surround to a garden gate, which is made of three large tooled coping stones surround, before heading up Brincliffe Hill to the entrance of Chelsea Heights. 

 

A remaining quarry face at Chelsea Heights

 

Making note of the space available to accommodate attendees of the walk, when looking at the Greenmoor Rock in the remains of the quarry face, I proceeded to Chelsea Rise and to the entrance of Quarry Head Lodge, which is built in another old quarry and this is commemorated with a sculpture of a plug and feathers. 

 

The plug and feathers sculpture

On a previous visit to Brincliffe Edge, I took a quick look at the old quarry faces here, which have been stabilised with rock bolts, but a geologist who has led geological walks during the Nether Edge Festival reported to me that residents of this private apartment block had not been happy with a group looking at the old quarry face. 

 

The area around Chelsea Road on the 1894 Ordance Survey map

Returning to Chelsea Road, the 1894 Ordnance Survey map shows that this part of Nether Edge still remained largely undeveloped, with Brinckliffe Tower being set in large grounds that have since been turned into Chelsea Park and a few houses set in large gardens. 

 

Later Victorian houses on Chelsea road

 

None of these houses are listed buildings, but these provide examples of the use of locally quarried Greenmoor Rock and Chris Venables, who had asked me to lead the walk and attended a field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group Field trip, has considerable knowledge of these houses and the people who lived there. 

 

Glenholme on Union Road

I took photographs of the various listed and other interesting buildings that I had previously encountered on Union Road, but I cannot add more to the descriptions of these in previous Language of Stone Blog posts and for the second half of the walk, I looked for boundary walls and gatepiers along the footpaths where the differences in the sandstones used for these can be clearly seen from a safe place. 

 

Boundary walls and gatepiers

 

It had taken me just over an hour to complete my walk from Chelsea Heights to Kenwood Hall Hotel and, with the sun shining brightly, I walked to St. Andrew’s church on Psalter Lane, which had opened its doors on the first day of the 2024 Heritage Open Days (HOD) festival. 

 

St. Andrew's church on Psalter Lane

 

I had visited this church during the festival a few years earlier and spent only a few minutes looking at the interior, where I noted that Ancaster limestone has been used for the arcades instead of sandstone – a feature that I had only seen in Sheffield at St. John’s church in Ranmoor – before continuing down Psalter Lane to have another quick look at Sheffield General Cemetery. 

 

An Ancaster limestone column in St. Andrew's church