A Walk From Tinsley to Brightside

 

Glacial erratics at the former Papa's Fish and Chips on Attercliffe Common

 

After photographing St. Lawrence’s church and its lychgate in Tinsley, to start my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, and then finding the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in the churchyard, I headed to Bawtry Road and came to a shopping parade where large rough blocks of iron rich sandstone have been used for landscaping. 

 

Sandstone blocks used for landscaping on Bawtry Road

 

From my general knowledge of the area and having completed a few Photo Challenges around the industrial east end of Sheffield, I knew that I wouldn’t find much subject matter that is of interest to this Language of Stone Blog. Nevertheless, I was just pleased to have a walk in the sunshine and learn something more about Sheffield’s industrial history. 

 

A boundary wall on Bawtry Road

A little further along Bawtry Road, a substantial boundary wall, which now fronts a mid C20 block of flats, is built with a sandstone that looks very similar to the sandstone used for the boundary wall of St. Lawrence’s churchyard, although it is quite well coursed and squared. 

 

The Tinsley Council School war memorial

 

Crossing over to have a quick look at the former Tinsley Meadows Primary School, which has now been moved to a much larger school in extensive grounds on the opposite side of Bawtry Road, I noticed an obelisk in a small green adjacent to it. Going to investigate this, an inscription shoes that it is a war memorial that commemorates pupils of Tinsley Council School who died in WWI. 

 

A detail of the war memorial

 

I didn’t look at it closely with my hand lens, but this massive uniformly buff coloured medium grained sandstone is probably from Derbyshire or West Yorkshire, where Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Corbar Grit and Bolton Woods stone from the Elland Flags respectively have often been used for war memorials. 

 

Tinsley Carnegie Library

 

Crossing over Siemens Close, I stopped to take a couple of photos of the former Tinsley Carnegie Library by the architects Holmes and Watson, which looks very neglected. It is not a listed building but the inscription above the entrance is carved with raised lettering on brick, which is quite unusual, and this building has now been registered on the South Yorkshire Local Heritage List.

 

Views of the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal

The next building on my list to photograph was Carbrook Hall, which is set back from Attercliffe Common, a busy road with very little of interest along it and I therefore decided to walk along the towpath of the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal, where I hoped that I might see a kingfisher. 

 

The Looping Boat

 

I had first walked along this section of the canal during the COVID-19 Pandemic in September 2020, not long after a walk along the Chesterfield Canal when I was very impressed by the set of locks, but the Looping Boat by Alex Chinneck had not been installed at the time. 

 

The Marble Players

Leaving the canal towpath by a footbridge that crosses the railway line, I continued along Lock House Road to Attercliffe Common and stopped to take a few more photos of the Marble Players by Vega Berjemo Castelnau, whose work can be seen elsewhere in Sheffield. 

 

Views of Carbrook Hall

 

Arriving at Carbrook Hall (c.1632), which was once owned by Sir John Bright who fought on the Parliamentarian side during the English Civil Wars, I had a quick walk around the exterior to take general record photos. I didn’t examine the stone used for the plinth or the mainly mullioned windows, but several quarries worked the Parkgate Rock along the north side of the Don Valley and it is quite possible that this has been used here. 

 

Sections of masonry restored in red sandstone

 

On the south end of the west elevation, however, I was very interested to see that a bright red sandstone has been used to restore mullions and transoms on some of the windows, as well as the string course above, which suggests that the original sandstone is reddened, but I can’t confirm this from my photos and I would have to take another look. 

 

Views of the Sheffield Forgemasters buildings on Attercliffe Common

 

Leaving Carbrook Hall, I took a few photographs of the building that contains the electric arc furnace at Sheffield Forgemasters, together with the tall buildings that filter dust and gas from the furnaces and form a landmark on the way from Sheffield to Rotherham. 

 

Glacial erratics outside the former Papa's Fish and Chips

 

Continuing along Attercliffe Common past the now closed Papa’s Fish and Chips, I was surprised to see that five large glacial erratics have been placed quite randomly on the grass and paving, without any associated formal landscaping or planting. 

 

An erratic with possible glacial striations

 

I didn’t closely examine them with my hand lens, but the largest erratic appears to be a gneiss, with three of the others possibly being quartzite, with what may be glacial striations. The other erratic has a distinctly green appearance, with the iron minerals within it developing a brown patina, which I think is from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group in Cumbria. 

 

An erratic from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group

 

Turning into Hawke Street, I continued past buildings owned by Forge Solutions Ltd. and stopped to take a photo of the Abyssinian Bridge over the River Don, where Staffordshire Blue bricks have been used for the walling and very coarse grained Chatsworth Grit - very probably from the Rivelin Valley - for the coping stones. 

 

A detail of Abyssinia Bridge

Arriving at Brightside Lane, there is another complex of Sheffield Forgemasters buildings, the River Don Works, which includes the Grade II listed Vickers Building, with the central offices (1906) by A.F. Watson for Vickers, Son & Co. with adjoining workshop ranges (1911) for Vickers, Son & Maxim/Vickers Ltd. In addition, the remaining early C20 wall incorporated into the later C20 works on the south side of Brightside Lane is also Grade II listed.

 

Views of the River Don Works on Brightside Lane

A passer by who used to work there informed me that the interior is lavishly decorated - highlighted by Historic England as marbles and terrazzo for the floors and stairs - but the only material that I noted when reading the blue plaque was the granitic stone to the main door surround, which I think might be a variety of larvikite. 

 

The blue plaque on the Vickers Building

 

After a walk of nearly 4 miles that had taken me 2½ hours, before catching the X3 bus back to Sheffield, I took a few photos of The Scorpion (2013) by Robin Widdowson and Sara Beavan, which was fabricated by apprentices at Sheffield Forgemasters.

 

The Scorpion

Graveyard Geology in Tinsley

 

The Royal Navy crest on the headstone of Petty Officer A.T. Clark

St. Lawrence’s church in Tinsley is built with various sandstones and, having taken a set of photos for my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, I went to look for the seven Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones that are recorded in the churchyard. 

 

The headstone of Gunner A.E. Price

 

The first headstone that I encountered commemorates Gunner A.E. Price of the 92nd Anti-Tank Regiment of the Gordon Highlanders, which is made out of Portland stone. Looking closely at this oolitic limestone, the numerous tiny shell fragments within it are standing proud, which is more typically seen in the WWI headstones. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Gunner A.E. Price

 

Portland stone has also been used for the headstone of Lance Corporal H.E. Powell of the Pioneer Corps, but the fine details of the regimental crest have deteriorated considerably, with the motto below being completely illegible. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Lance Corporal H.E. Powell

Both of these headstones, along with that of Sergeant E.H.C. Hardman of the Royal Air Force, which has been replaced with Botticino marble, appear on the same mason’s worksheet and the grave registration form for them has a date of 18th December 1957. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Sergeant E.H.C. Hardman

Tinsley forms part of the industrial east end of Sheffield, where the steelworks spread all the way along the Lower Don Valley were a major producer of sulphurous atmospheric pollutants. Although by the 1980’s, the Conservative government policy under Margaret Thatcher led to the rapid decline of the local steel industry, it is likely that the industry had an effect on the decay of the Portland stone headstone. This probably also includes the headstone of Petty Officer Telegraphist A.T. Clark of the Royal Navy, where the original stone has been replaced with Botticino 'marble'.

 

The headstone of Petty Officer A.T. Clark

Sandstone is used for the headstones of Private E. Brown of the West Yorkshire Regiment and Lance Bombardier R. A. Bywater of the Royal Field Artillery. I didn’t examine them with my hand lens, but the only sandstones that I have seen used by the CWGC to date are Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Corbar Grit/Ashover Grit and Woodkirk Blue stone from the Thornhill Rock. 

 

The headstones of Private E. Brown and Lance Bombardier R.A. Bywater

The headstone of R. A. Bywater, in particular, has a developed a brown patina that I had seen at Wadsley churchyard in Sheffield and Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham, where the mason’s worksheet records that Woodkirk Blue stone had been used. 

 

Spalling on the headstone of Private R.A. Bywater

 

The sandstone of this headstone has also started to spall in places, which is more likely in the Thornhill Rock, a sandstone from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation that is not as durable as the Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Millstone Grit Group. 

 

The grave slabs of Elizabeth and John Wright Potter

The older grave slabs are made of a fine grained sandstone that is probably from a quarry in the Greenmoor Rock around Brincliffe Edge and Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, which is known as Brincliffe Edge Rock and developed a very good reputation for is monumental quality stone. 

 

The memorial to members of the Gray family

I noted various Victorian memorials made of granite, including the tapering square column with an entablature and topped with an urn, which commemorates various members of the Gray family, but I didn’t take a close look at any of these. 

 

A figurative sculpture carved in Carrara marble

White Italian Carrara marble is used for various memorials and, as seen at Handsworth New Cemetery earlier in the month, the marble is deeply weathered and has developed a saccharoidal texture. The extent of the loss of surface material is seen in the memorial to Arthur and Florence Crossland, where the lead lettering for the former protected the underlying marble from chemical weathering to leave this standing proud, until the letters fell off. 

 

The memorial to Arthur and Florence Crossland

Leaving the churchyard by the Grade II listed lychgate (1877), by G.E. Street, I noted that the boundary wall is built with very irregularly bedded thinly coursed sandstone, which is plane bedded and generally grey in colour but with considerable iron staining in places. 

 

The lychgate

 

Although the quoins to the lychgate and coping stones for the boundary wall are likely to have been brought in from a source of better quality building stone, which could be some distance away, such rough walling has probably been obtained from a local unnamed Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation sandstone, but I can’t see any quarries in the immediate vicinity on the old Ordnance Survey maps. 

 

The geological map of the area around Tinsley

Looking closer at my photographs of the boundary wall, I can see occasional pieces of massive dull red sandstone that look like the one used in the quoins to the 1925 vestry of the church, which I presume to be Rotherham Red sandstone and are most likely to have been used with the occasional brick for contemporary repairs to the wall.

 

The boundary wall to the churchyard

 

St. Lawrence's Church in Tinsley

 

The Church of St. Lawrence

My trip to Armthorpe on 9th April 2025, when I visited the Church of St. Leonard and St. Mary, discovered glaciofluvial pebbles in its churchyard, encountered various building stones at St. Mary’s church in Wheatley and then found a mysterious section of an old wall, was already my fourth day out in the month. 

 

A newly designed leaflet for All Saints church in Aston

 

With the good weather continuing, a couple of days later I caught the No. 71 bus to Aston, to take advantage of a coffee morning at All Saints church. I first visited this church in 2016, shortly after I commenced my investigation of the mediaeval churches of Rotherham at St. Helen’s church in Treeton, and then later in the year during the Heritage Open Days festival. 

 

A Photo Challenge for the east end of Sheffield

 

As with my visit to All Hallows church in Harthill the week before, I can’t really add anything more to my previous Language of Stone Blog posts that describe its principal features and I shall continue with a brief description of my next day out a few days later - to undertake a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Tinsley, Carbrook and Brightside in the industrial east end of Sheffield. 

 

Approaching the Church of St. Lawrence

Taking the X3 bus from Rotherham and alighting at the Blackburn Meadows Way/Sheffield Road stop, I then walked up St. Lawrence’s Road until I came to the Grade II listed St. Lawrence’s church (1879), by G.E. Street, which was the first building on my list. 

 

The south porch

 

Entering the churchyard, I approached the south porch and immediately noted that the walling stone is a yellowish/light brown thinly coursed sandstone, with a massive uniformly buff coloured medium grained sandstone used for the dressings. 

 

A detail of the decorated arch to the porch

In the Sheffield region, Crawshaw Sandstone, is the only sandstone that I have seen that has similar physical characteristics to the walling stone, especially in the Sheffield Board Schools, but the stone used for the walling stone in this church is less durable and is differentially weathered to reveal the plane bedding – as clearly seen in the east wall of the chancel. 

 

The east elevation of the chancel

 

The physical characteristics of the stone used for the dressings is consistent with medium grained sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group, such as Stoke Hall stone from the Kinderscout Grit in Derbyshire and Huddersfield stone from the Rough Rock in West Yorkshire – both of which are widely seen in the board schools and other commercial buildings on Church Street, Fargate and High Street in Sheffield city centre. 

 

The vestry to the south of the chancel

 

Looking more closely at the south elevation, the quoins to the lower section of the vestry, which was added along with the parish rooms in 1925, are made of a massive dull red sandstone and this has also been used for a buttress on the south aisle. 

 

Red sandstone used for quoins

Moving around to the north elevation, which was in deep shade, some of the sections of the window surrounds, the mullions and the chamfered band course above are also made of a red sandstone, which suggests that the original stone has been replaced at some time in the past. 

 

A window in the north aisle

I didn’t examine the stone very closely, but It looks very much like the Rotherham Red variety of Mexborough Rock, which was widely quarried less than 3 km to the east at Canklow Woods and could have easily been transported along Bawtry Road. 

 

A window with a chamfered band course above

A Walk From Wheatley to Doncaster

 

A detail of the Corn Exchange in Doncaster

My day out on the buses and trains from Treeton to Doncaster, with the principal objective to visit the Church of St. Leonard and St. Mary in Armthorpe and its churchyard, turned out to be very informative to me as a geologist with specialist interests in building stone - with St. Mary’s church in Wheatley adding further to this. 

 

A view of the mural on No. 29 Baxter Avenue

When taking a photo of the west end of St. Mary’s church, the bright colours of the mural on the south wall of No. 29 Baxter Avenue first caught my eye and, getting nearer to it in St. Mary's Crescent play area, I was interested to see that the brick boundary wall immediately to the south of it is built on what looks like a much older wall. 

The western section of the old wall

 

Taking a closer look at this wall, which is approximately 20 m long, it is made of an unsorted mixture of dolomitic limestone fragments and glaciofluvial pebbles of pre-Ipswichian age, as seen in Armthorpe, set in lime mortar, which suggested to me that it was a form of very crude concrete. 

 

Layering consistent with formwork construction

 

Having worked as a semi-skilled building labourer, before and after studying geology at Nottingham University, I know that shuttering or formwork is a way of constructing a concrete wall and this wall shows layers that are consistent with this. 

 

A detail of the wall

I had never seen any wall like this before and I contacted the archaeologist Peter Robinson at Doncaster Museum to ask if he knew what this was, but he was unable to help me; however, looking at the 1854 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, it appears as a wall that isn't very obviously connected to any building or estate. 

 

Wheatley on the 1854 OS map

A Google search for “Is shuttering used for lime based rubble walling” came back with an AI generated response as bungaroosh, which I had never heard of before, and is described as a composite building material made from lime, gravel, coarse sand, flints and sometimes brick fragments or other brick rubble. Although the Romans used this method of construction, it is almost exclusively found in the English seaside towns of Brighton and Hove, where it was a popular product during the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Bungaroosh at Prince's Crescent in Brighton

I don’t suppose that I will ever know the origin or purpose of this wall and I set off down Queen's Road on the short walk to Doncaster Market, passing the brick built former Nether Hall Road Methodist Church, which is not a listed building. 

 

The tower of the former Nether Hall Methodist Church

Another Google Search, with AI generated results, indicates that it was designed by the London based architects Gordon and Gunton and completed in 1902, with Accrington brick and Ancaster limestone used in its construction, but I did not get close enough to confirm this. Much of the church was demolished in the 1980’s, leaving only the tower and the Nether Hall Road façade, with the demolished sections being replaced with apartments. 

 

The tower and the adjoining façade of the former Methodist church

Arriving at Market Pace, I took a few photos of the Corn Exchange (1870-1873) by William Watkins of Lincoln, which was inserted into the U-shaped original market building (1849) by J. Butterfield, who was the architect of Doncaster Corporation. 

 

The north elevation of the Corn Exchange

 

I have never examined the stonework of these buildings but, from my photographs, the sandstone used for the band course between the ground and first floors, the associated balustrades and the entablatures to the projecting bays appears yellowish in colour, compared to the massive sandstone used for the ashlar and other dressings. 

 

Various sandstones used at the Corn exchange

A dull red sandstone has been used for the large engaged columns, which is very probably Red Mansfield stone – a sandy variety of the Upper Permian Cadeby Formation that was used extensively throughout Britain in later Victorian buildings. 

 

The foundation stone

 

On the north-west corner, a very large foundation stone made with a reddish coloured sandstone, is set into the rusticated plinth and the worn inscriptions record Arthur Smith and William Cotterill Clark, who were mayors of Doncaster in 1870 and 1873 respectively. 

 

A detail of the foundation stone named William Cotterill Clark

 

Moving round to the right return of the Corn Exchange, I noted that the fine/medium grained sandstone ashlar above the plinth has disintegrated quite badly and that sections of this have been previously repaired with sand and cement. 

 

Decayed sections of ashlar restored with sand and cement

 

The colour and texture suggest that this is a Coal Measures sandstone, which is likely to be from West Yorkshire. Looking at the Building Stones Database for England (BSDE) map explorer, only 30 of Doncaster’s 807 listed buildings (which includes 32 mediaeval churches) are marked on this.

 

Listed buildings in Doncaster on the BSDE map explorer

When I first saw the map explorer, I was really quite shocked by the fact that so few buildings are shown in South Yorkshire and that the Strategic Stone Study and the updated publication for West and South Yorkshire, on which it is based, contain basic errors that anyone with a knowledge of the local geology and geography would not have made. 

 

Publications resulting from the Strategic Stone Study

 

The Historic England officer responsible explained that this was a desk top study undertaken by consultants in south-west England, which is quite galling for a local building stone specialist – especially when the map explorer entry for the Market Building/Corn Exchange describes it as being built with Portland stone.

 

The BSDE map explorer entry for the Corn Exchange