A Recce at Ilkley Moor - Part 2

 

An information panel at the Lanshaw Lad boundary stone

After taking our lunch in Hangingstone Quarry, having discovered the location of the slickensides during our recce of Ilkley Moor for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip, in August 2024, we went in search of Site 7 highlighted in Ilkley Moor - Its Geology and Heritage (IMIGH) by Gareth Martin and David Leather. 

 

A large glacial striation above Hangingstone Quarry

 

When studying A Level geography back in 1978, I was taught about glacial striations, caused by the scouring of bedrock by lumps of harder rock that were embedded in the base of the glacier that flowed over it but, to the best of my knowledge, I had never seen any of these in the Scottish Highlands or the Lake District, while studying geology at Nottingham University. 

 

Glacial striations above Hangingstone Quarry

 

Those on Ilkley Moor are described as “some of the finest examples of glacial striae” that can be seen in the UK with a west-east direction and their height of 150 m above the valley floor indicating the minimum thickness of the glacier. 

 

The Crocodile's Mouth

Finding one of the many paths that criss-cross Ilkley Moor, we stopped briefly to look at the geomorphological feature called the Crocodile’s Mouth and then carried on alongside Backstone Beck, which runs along a fault controlled valley. 

 

A view towards the waterfall on Backstone Beck

The beck flows through quite a deep valley with steep sides, which changes abruptly into a small channel upstream and is marked by a waterfall. This is interpreted as a knickpoint, which is eroding up slope and was possibly a response to the formation of a hanging valley during the glaciation of Lower Wharfedale in the Pleistocene Epoch. 

 

A view of the mass movement deposits beyond Backstone Beck

 

Looking south along Backstone Beck, the very undulating bracken covered landscape that is seen beyond the valley is due to the mass movement deposits, which are a common feature of the north facing slopes beneath the Addingham Edge Grit along Lower Wharfedale and was seen during the field trip to Otley Chevin. 

 

Mass movement deposits at Ilkley Moor

 

Continuing along the unmarked path to a viewpoint, where the very worn public footpath from the Cow and Calf Rocks fords Bakestone Beck, we briefly looked for the unusual coarse gritstone mentioned in the IMIGH geological trail; however, I didn’t see anything that stood out from the many examples of very coarse sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group, which I had seen on my travels in South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire. 

 

A view down the path from Backstone Beck to the Cow and Calf Rocks

The next location on the geological trail was Rocky Valley, which marks the top of a rotational landslide, with Ilkley Crags forming its crown and the main scarp immediately beneath it. Having located the well used public footpath, we didn’t spend any time investigating its principal features, which can be seen from a distance, and set off to find the remaining 7 locations. 

 

Ilkley Crags and Rocky Valley

It very soon became obvious that the moorland here is again criss-crossed by a network of very poorly defined paths, which are marked on the 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Survey (OS) map but are not classed as public rights of way and signposted. 

 

The OS map covering the southern part of the geological trail

 

There are no obvious landmarks from which to get your bearings but, once we managed to find a path that crossed over Bakestone Beck, we kept close to the beck and carried on until we found the prehistoric Bakestone Beck enclosure and huts, which archaeological excavations suggest are late Neolithic (c.3000 BC) and late Bronze Age to early Iron Age respectively (800 to 500 BC). 

 

The Bakestone Beck enclosure and huts

 

Continuing along this path, we then encountered the Poetry Seat and Poetry Postbox, which forms part of the Stanza Stones Poetry Trail from Marsden to Ilkley, with poems by Simon Armitage cut into large stones by Pip Hall – the lettercarver whose work I had also seen on the Kilkenny limestone seats on The Moor in Sheffield.

 

The Poetry Seat and Poetry Postbox

Since leaving Rocky Valley we hadn’t seen any outcrops of bedrock, but a little further along the path I was interested to see a lump of very coarse gritstone sticking out of the path, which contained a bed of finger nail size quartz pebbles. Looking at the geological map, the underlying bedrock here is the Long Ridge Sandstone in the Millstone Grit Group. 

 

A detail of the pebbly gritstone in the path

So far on our recce, we had found most of the locations on the geological guide with relative ease, although the network of paths on Ilkley Moor is quite confusing and some of these would benefit from better descriptions of the precise locality and grid references. 

 

A Google Map view with Lanshaw Delves marked in red

 

Arriving at the Dales High Way, which is laid with flagstones, next on our list of places was Lanshaw Delves, is a west-east trending lateral moraine that is described as being approximately 600 m long by 40 m wide by about 3 m high. The Google Map satellite view and the OS map show that its western end is 115 m beyond the point where another public footpath splits off from it. 

 

The beginning of Lanshaw Delves on Google Street View

 

Keeping our eyes open for the junction of the two footpaths, we didn’t see any sign of this or any feature in the landscape that suggested that we had arrived at the beginning of a moraine and continuing along the Dales High Way and reaching the Lanshaw Lad boundary stone, we realised that we had completely missed this feature. 

 

The Lanshaw Lad boundary stone

Consulting our various maps, we thought that it would be easy enough to locate the path that would take us to the east end of Lanshaw Delves and carried on along a well established path past The Twelve Apostles stone circle. 

 

The Twelve Apostles stone circle

 

Failing to locate the public footpaths marked on the OS map, we had to stop three times to ask local walkers for help in finding a path that would enable us to get back to the Cow and Calf car park by the quickest route, without having to retrace our steps. All of the people we talked to told us that the paths on Ilkley Moor are notoriously difficult to navigate and, despite trying to follow their directions to the best of our ability, John and Trish had to use their GPS apps to get us to the Dales Way/Ebor Way. 

 

The OS map showing paths on our return from The Twelve Apostles

 

When we set off from Rocky Valley, the time was 13:34 pm and the route marked on the IMIGH geological trail covered a distance of 3.25 km. We had been confident that we would be back at the Cow and Calf car park well before 15:30 pm, which is the usual finishing time for field trips; however, although we didn't get completely lost, by the time we arrived at Hangingstone Road it was 16:23 pm. 

 

A distant view of the Cow and Calf Hotel

 

Finally arriving at the car park, we then finished what had turned out to be a very long and tiring day by enjoying a drink in the late afternoon sunshine at the Cow and Calf Hotel. Having collectively decided that we would have to revise our plans for the actual field trip two weeks later, we then set off on the long drive back to Treeton.

The Cow and Calf Hotel

A Recce at Ilkley Moor - Part 1

 

The Calf at Ilkley Moor

Following on from my day out to Leeds, where I learned a lot about the history of the canal and railway and its various industries, my attention next turned to a recce for the August 2024 field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group to Ilkley Moor. 

 

The Ilkley Moor geological trail

 

On a few occasions the group had made good use of geological trails and walks produced by the West Yorkshire Geology Trust and the Leeds Geological Association, with Bill Fraser leading trips to Roundhay Park and east Leeds and Gareth Martin showing us around Wharncliffe Crags. 

 

The route of the geological trail

 

The group leader, who I had undertaken several recces with, had been suffering from poor health and this time I was very glad that John and Trish had volunteered to provide transport and help with the preparation of this field trip. They are seasoned walkers who are equipped with satellite navigation devices and Ordnance Survey maps and, although we had carefully researched the walk using a variety of other online maps, we discovered that the southern part of the route is far from easy to follow. 

 

Treeton and Ilkley Moor

 

Setting off from Treeton and driving up the M1, our route via the M62, the A677 ring road around Bradford and with views of the countryside beyond Bingley was much more enjoyable than the sat nav route that was taken by the group leader on both the recce and field trip to Otley Chevin, which involved a convoluted tour of the eastern part of Leeds. 

 

The Cow and Calf Rocks

Arriving at the car park off Hangingstone Road, we could clearly see the crags of Addingham Edge Grit that form the Cow and Calf Rocks and which the group had seen at Otley Chevin and I had encountered as a building stone in the former Leeds School Board a few days before.

 

The geology of Ilkley Moor

Following the path, which is laid with flagstones that contain ripple marks and were salvaged from one of the old textile mills in the area, our first stop was at a large boulder next to the path, which has an eroded tube shaped void in it. 

 

Salvaged flags on the path to the Cow and Calf Quarry

This is a fossil imprint of the Upper Carboniferous Knorria, the inner pithy layers of the Lepidodendron club moss from which the outer layers of bark have been shed. Looking closely at the very coarse grained sandstone, this would have been formed in a large river channel and the fossil would have been derived from the swampy forest along its river banks. 

 

The Knorria fossil

 

Next on the route was the large slumped block known as the Calf, which is 11 m high and was detached from the main outcrop by the ice sheet that covered Lower Wharfedale 10-12,000 years ago, with it subsequently sliding downslope and rotating at an angle of 140 degrees. 

 

Following the path to the Calf

 

Making our way into the large Cow and Calf Quarry, in several places the deeply iron stained quarry faces are covered in graffiti, which has been carved into the very coarse grained and frequently pebbly Addingham Edge Grit. 

 

Graffiti marking a climbing route in Cow and Calf Quarry

On the day of the field trip a couple of years later, a local resident who joined the group for this event explained that some of these, including the “OLD CRACK AND RACKETY JACK”, are the names of climbing routes that were roughly carved into the gritstone by some of the rock climbers who frequented this very popular locality. 

 

Cow and Calf Quarry

 

Leaving the quarry and making our way along another path to the heather and bracken covered moorland above it, we obtained a good view down into the quarry and of the glaciated valley of Lower Wharfedale further in the distance. 

 

A view to Ilkley Crags

 

To the south, the ground rises to form Ilkley Crags but we headed north to the escarpment of the Cow and Calf Rocks overlooking Ilkley, where the gritstone is covered in graffiti that largely dates to the C19. Most of these have been carved by visitors who frequented Ilkley when it was a fashionable spa town, with many of them showing a high degree of letter cutting skills. 

 

Victorian graffiti and views of Wharfedale from the Cow and Calf Rocks

Taking in the views of Wharfedale, we then continued to the Hangingstone Quarry and went to look for the cup and ring marks, which are one of over 400  that are found in the area – mainly scattered around Rombalds Moor to the west – and date back to the Neolithic or Bronze Age. 

 

Cup and ring marks

Very near to these marks, which have been cut into a surface that has been scoured by ice, is a large rock that shows very distorted bedding that is known as soft sediment deformation. These are created by the escape of water, caused by rapid squeezing of the sediment and the expulsion of water during slumping or tectonic activity. 

 

A rock with soft sediment deformation

 

Dropping back down into the floor of the quarry, we then went in search for the next location on the geological trail, a set of slickensides, which we eventually found in the south-west corner of the quarry at high level. 

 

A rock face with slickensides

 

The brown polished face marks the place where the rocks on each side of a north-south aligned fault plane have ground against one another to leave a series of closely spaced lineations. The rocks are dated as c.310 million years old and the movement along the fault must have taken place at a later time, but there is no way of assigning a date to this.

A detail of the slickensides

St. Anne's Catholic Cathedral in Leeds

The chancel

To finish a very productive day, which had included an exploration of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Granary Wharf, the old industrial buildings at Holbeck Urban Village, textile warehouses on Wellington Street and the former Leeds School Board Offices and Leeds Central Library, I had a very quick look at the Grade II* listed St. Anne's Roman Catholic Cathedral (1904). 

 

Rough Rock walling and Ketton stone dressings on the north elevation

 

When photographing the listed buildings at the east end of Great George Street, I took a couple of photos of the buildings to the east of the tower on its north elevation, including Cathedral Chambers. Although it wasn't obvious that these formed part of the cathedral, once I had read the Historic England (HE) description, I could see from these that the walling of the building adjoining the tower consists of Horsforth Stone from the Rough Rock and that Middle Jurassic Ketton stone from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation is used for the dressings.

 

A floor plan of St. Anne's Roman Catholic Cathedral

 
When researching the cathedral itself, which was designed by J.H. Eastwood and his assistant S.K. Greenslade in the Arts and Craft Gothic Style and completed in 1904, I referred to the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds (BSHL), which confirms that these stones have been used, as mentioned in volume 80 (1901) of The Builder - p. 490 and p. 240.

 

The west entrance

In the Pevsner Architectural Guide to Leeds (PAGL), Susan Wrathmell writes "the cathedral makes a strong impact to the street, enhanced by finely jointed courses of large blocks of Weldon stone. Carved details are in beautiful, buff-coloured Ketton limestone".

 

The crucifix above the west entrance

Weldon stone is named on p. 240 as the stone selected for the facing of the external walls, but the only stone I know with this name is another Middle Jurassic oolitic limestone from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation in Northamptonshire, but the BSHL makes no mention of its use and highlights the fact that the walling stone contains conspicuous quartz pebbles.

 

Weldon Stone in the Building Limestones of the British Isles

From my photos of the west entrance and the crucifix above, I can clearly see a difference between the stone used for the walling and the dressings, which would have been emphasised when the cathedral was cleaned in 1987. I didn't take a closer look at the time and entered the cathedral through the south door, where I firstly took a photo of the north arcade, which is built with a very pale coloured stone that is another Jurassic oolitic limestone – this time a variety of Bath Stone from Corsham Down in Wiltshire.

 

A view from the south entrance

Walking quickly anti-clockwise around the interior, I first came across Carrara white marble statues of Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Francis of Assisi, which according to the PAGL were presented to the cathedral in 1927. 

 

Statues of Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Francis of Assisi

 

Moving on to the former baptistery, the Statue of the Sacred Heart was sculpted by Cesare Formilli, who was also responsible for the marble walling and flooring and the war memorial. I am no expert on marbles, but the wall panels may be the giallo di Siena marble for the upper section and green/grey cipollino marble for the lower part – both of which are from Tuscany in Italy.

 

The former baptistery and the Statue of the Sacred Heart

Next to this is the Pietà Chapel, where the white Carrara marble sculpture (1913) by R.L. Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham is based on Michaelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica. The panelling behind this appears to be a dark green serpentinite, which is probably from the Alps or the Northern Apennines in north-west Italy.

 

The Pietà Chapel

The Chapel of Saint Joseph was designed by Eastwood and the alabaster reredos was produced by H.H. Martyn & Co. of Cheltenham in 1904, with the relief of St. Joseph on his deathbed being made with a light coloured alabaster and a much darker red/brown veined variety for the panel behind – characteristics of the alabaster that came from Chellaston and Tutbury respectively.

 

The Chapel of Saint Joseph

Adjoining this is the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, with another very large and ornate pale alabaster reredos, which was designed by Greenslade and with Nathaniel Hitch (1904) carving the frieze that depicts the Last Supper and sculptures of the Sacred Heart, Moses and the Crucifixion above.

 

The Chapel of the Sacred Heart

 
The many chapels in the cathedral are closed off with railings or altar rails and I therefore didn't get much of an opportunity to have a close look at the various materials used, especially the mosaics in the sanctuary that are also by Formilli.

The chancel

 

Having spent only 7 minutes inside the cathedral taking 32 general record photographs, I really need to go back and take a much closer look at the various features and details, including the reredos (1842) by Augustus Pugin, which was retained from the original St. Anne's church (1838), by John Child, before it was demolished when The Headrow was widened.

 

The reredos by Augustus Pugin

In particular, I want to have a close look at the Ketton stone, a Jurassic limestone composed almost entirely of unifromly sized ooliths with very little shell content, and also the Bath Stone, which seems to be much lighter in colour than those varieties that I had seen used as dressings, when working in the building restoration industry in London.

 

General views of the Bath Stone masonry