A Day Out to Old Whittington - Part 1

 

The topography around Old Whittington

After a very slow start to 2025, with a recce of Burbage Valley and a brief visit to Christ Church in February and a brief exploration of The Crags in Conisbrough in March, April proved to be a busy month and started with a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge at Old Whittington – a small village mentioned in Domesday Book as Witintune, which is set 4 km to the north of Chesterfield. 

 

Whittington Moor war memorial

Alighting from the X17 bus at the Whittington Moor Lidl stop, I made my way across Whittington Moor Roundabout to Station Road and immediately encountered Whittington Moor war memorial (1921), in the form of a wheel cross, which the Derbyshire Courier describes as being made from Derbyshire gritstone. 

 

A detail of the gritstone used for Whittington Moor war memorial

 

I didn’t closely examine the stone with my hand lens, but from the photos that I took, I can see that the roughly tooled sandstone is medium grained and it is very likely that this is Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Corbar Grit (Ashover Grit), which was used for many war memorials and Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in the region. 

 

Whittington Mill

 

Continuing along Station Road, I stopped briefly at Whittington Mill, a flour mill that was powered by water from a mill pond that was fed by the River Whitting to the north, but which has been infilled and redeveloped with industrial units. 

 

The River Whitting

 

I didn’t get near enough to look at the sandstone used to build the mill, but from my photos I can see that it is generally light brown with a considerable proportion of the blocks having an orange/brown colouration. Looking at the 1883 Ordnance Survey map, quarries to the north of Sheepbridge, a few hundred metres to the west of Old Whittington, worked the Deep Hard Rock.

 

The geology around Old Whittington

The first building on my Photo Challenge, the Grade II listed Manor House, has a central section that dates to the C16 or C17, with large mullioned windows, but a high garden wall, shrubs and trees obscures the ground floor of the east elevation. 

 

The Manor House

 

Briefly stopping to take in the view up Whittington Hill, where the marked change in the slope is formed by the underlying Deep Hard Rock, from the Manor House to the north side of Newbridge Lane, there is a change in elevation from 72 m to 94 m above sea level over a distance of 240 m. 

 

Views up and down Whittington Hill

Continuing up Whittington Hill to High Street, the geological map shows that I had passed over the younger Silkstone Rock and that I had actually been walking up the southern limb of  the Brimington Anticline. This is related to the Dronfield Syncline and other folds in the Sheffield region – as described on pp. 148-151 of the geological memoir for the Sheffield district and illustrated in Plate VI. 

 

Plate VI from the geological memoir for the Sheffield district

I had encountered some of these when exploring Coal Aston, Dronfield, Ridgeway, Eckington and Mosborough, which are underlain by strata of the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation, and during a short 1.25 km walk from Sheffield Road to Church Street North – where the fold axis of the Brimington Anticline has an elevation of 98 m – I had learned something new about the structural geology of the region. 

 

A view across High Street to Church Street North

 

On my walk to date, except for Whittington Mill and the Manor House, I don’t recall seeing any other buildings that are built out of sandstone but, crossing over High Street and entering the Old Whittington Conservation Area, it is obvious that this is the dominant material here and I immediately went in search for the 18 listed buildings on my Photo Challenge. 

 

The Old Whittington Conservation Area

The Crags in Conisbrough

 

An outcrop of the Cadeby Formation on The Crags

A few days after I had contributed to the recce of Burbage Valley with John and Trish of the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, which proved to my last formal connection with the group, I received an e-mail from Justyna, who had moved from Poland with her partner and had settled in Conisbrough several years before Brexit. 

 

The location of The Crags on the geological map

She was in her second year of studying geology with the Open University and, having been researching The Crags, she had been considering using the outcrops of the Cadeby Formation for a future fieldwork project. Noting various posts that I have written in my Language of Stone Blog, she wanted to know if it was possible to accompany me on a field trip.

 

The distribution of the Cadeby Formation around the Don Gorge

 

In a subsequent phone call, I explained that as the principal surveyor for the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group, and later for the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment (DGA), I had visited many sites in Doncaster and had used several sites along the Don Gorge for field trips with the XP School in Doncaster and with the SUGG.

 

Conisbrough on the Ordnance Survey map

 

When researching one of my field trips with the SUGG in February 2022, which had to be abandoned at midday due to the approach of Storm Dudley, I had discovered the Friends of the Crags (FOTC) website and emailed them to ask for information but did not get a response. I therefore suggested to Justyna that we meet up at the playing field at Old Road and then she would show me around The Crags. 

 

The totem and information panel at Denaby Thicks

We first went down to Denaby Thicks at the west end of The Crags, where a 'totem' and an information board describes bell pits and the powder works, which were actually located several hundreds of metres away but nevertheless provides information on the local industrial history. 

 

A view towards Denaby Thicks

 

Taking just one photo of the plantation to the west of the totem, we took a quick look at Denaby Thicks and, although we could see no rock outcrops, the ground has obviously been worked in the past, as seen on the LIDAR map, and sandstone quarries are shown on the Building Stones Database of England map explorer. 

 

A LIDAR map showing the old quarry in Denaby Thicks

We then followed the public footpath eastwards until we entered an area of scrubland, with a network of paths criss-crossing it, but there were no obvious landmarks to pinpoint the location of the various outcrops of the Cadeby Formation, including irregular masses with no obvious bedding  that appear to be bryozoan reefs. 

 

A small outcrop of a bryozoan reef

When undertaking the LGA, I saw similar features that stood out on the hillside along Cadeby Cliff/Constitution Hill, albeit not as well developed as those seen at Hooton Pagnell and South Elmsall Quarry and at Maltby Crags in Rotherham.

 

A small outcrop of the Cadeby Formation

 

Several small outcrops, which I didn’t stop to closely examine, occur alongside the footpaths that Justyna was leading me around and these are actually noted on the 1903 edition of the Ordnance Survey 25 inch to the mile scale map.

 

An outcrop of the Cadeby Formation with thick irregular beds

Following one of the established and surfaced paths up the escarpment, on the way to North Cliff Quarry, we encountered a substantial outcrop of limestone, which has thick irregular bedding that distinguishes it from the reefs, but it lacks the very regular beds that are are a feature of the lower beds of the Cadeby Formation. 

 

A brief description of mammal bones found at The Crags

Although there is no totem or any mention of the locality, the FOTG website mentions that woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and horse bones dating to the Quaternary Period – all of which had been gnawed by a hyena - were found in 1878, when the Doncaster Water Company was constructing tunnels and pipes to bring water from Thrybergh Reservoir. 

 

Sand and gravel in a rift at Nearcliff Wood Quarries

The bones are described as having been found in clay and washed down from caves, presumably based on contemporary discoveries at Creswell Crags, but it is quite likely that these were deposited along with glaciofluvial sand and gravel in rifts - as seen at Nearcliff Wood Quarries and at Levitt Hagg, where Colin Howes of the Doncaster Naturalists' Society has long since advocated that these rifts need further investigation. 

 

A view from the north edge of North Cliff Quarry

Continuing along the footpath, Justyna and I were very surprised to see that the part of the hillside had been set on fire and that this had happened too in North Cliff Quarry, which actually made it much easier to explore the quarry, which is littered with cans, bottles and rock waste and which, when overgrown, can be quite hazardous. I later reported this to Doncaster MBC and suggested that it might be a good idea to clear the rubbish, but no action was taken as far as I know.

 

A view of North Cliff Quarry

 

When I first visited this quarry back in 1997, several burnt out cars had been dumped here, which were subsequently removed when it was assigned RIGS status. Unfortunately, along with statutorily protected Sites of Special Scientific Interest, geological sites like these are not maintained and kept clear of rubbish – even when they are popular field trip locations.

 

Massive beds of limestone overlain by a bryozoan reef

Justyna had to instruct her Polish sheep dog to sit still, while we had a good look at the bryozoan reef and the thickly bedded limestone upon which it lies, which are oolitic in places and contain many small fossils of the bivalve Bakevellia. 

 

The north quarry face

 

We finished our brief exploration of The Crags by having a look at the quarry face in the south-west corner of the quarry, which is obscured by trees and which Justyna had not seen during a previous visit. where thickly bedded limestone is overlain by flaggy limestone. 

 

Massive and flaggy beds of limestone

A Further Exploration of Fulwood

 

The west end of Christ Church

The recce of Burbage Valley with Trish and John took just over 2½ hours to complete and, arriving back in Sheffield, instead of being dropped off at St. John’s church in Ranmoor where they had collected me in the morning, I decided to have a quick look around the churchyard of Christ Church – best known for the C20 alterations by George Gaze Pace and Ronald Sims. 

 

The north elevation 

 

When walking from Ranmoor to Ecclesall Road, via Fulwood, the Porter Valley and Endcliffe Park, in September 2022, I took a few general photos of the exterior, but building work was being undertaken at the time and there was limited access to parts of the churchyard. 

 

A memorial to Arthur Deakin and family

 

The first monument that caught my eye commemorates Arthur Deakin, Vera Ann Slater and Dorothy Weston – with none of these listed on the Find a Grave website - is made of Ross of Mull granite, with its distinctive dark red orthoclase feldspar and subsidiary green hornblende. 

 

Ross of Mull granite

I next encountered the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstone of 2nd Lieutenant G.F.C. Chatt of the Royal Corps of Signals, which is made of Botticino marble – a Jurassic limestone from Brescia in Italy that has only been used to replace headstones, with a CNC milling machine reproducing the original hand cut regimental crests and inscriptions. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of 2nd Lieutenant G.F.C. Chatt

 

The memorial to James Neill (d.1930), and several members of his family, is a simple cross made of white marble with grey veins that is probably the ‘Sicilian’ variety of Italian Carrara marble. I didn’t examine it closely, but marble like this is not very resistant to the British climate and memorials made in the C19 very often show saccharoidal weathering.

 

The memorial to James Neill and family

 

With the decision to have a look around the churchyard being spontaneous, I wandered randomly until I came across the headstone of Stoker 1st Class L. Green, who served on H.M.S. Vincent – a dreadnought battleship that participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916.

 

The headstone of Stoker 1st Class L. Green

I didn’t have any interest in the Royal Navy crest, which I had seen very many times before, but immediately thought that it was another example of Botticino marble. Looking at the original worksheet, the stone used was Woodkirk Blue, but the worksheet for the replacement headstone quite surprisingly states that it is made from Portland stone.

 

The tomb of William Bissett

 

The table tomb of William Bissett (d.1888), a prominent builder who had built several prominent buildings in Sheffield and rebuilt St. John’s church in Ranmoor, is made of a yellowish sandstone with a very weathered marble breccia used for the colonnettes and pink granite – probably the Peterhead variety from the Aberdeenshire coast – for one of the inscribed panels.

 

A memorial made of Shap granite

 

The next memorial that caught my eye was a tapering square column with an entablature and topped with an urn. I didn’t see the inscription, but it looks later Victorian and it is made with Shap granite from Cumbria, which has large phenocrysts of dark pink orthoclase feldspar.

 

Phenocrysts of orthoclase feldspar

The headstone of Serjeant A.G. Pinder of the York and Lancaster Regiment is made of Portland stone, which has been weathered to the extent that shell fragments stand proud; however, the details of the headstone appear on the same worksheet as Stoker L. Green, where Woodkirk Blue sandstone has been specified.

 

The headstone of Serjeant A.G. Pinder

Like many large churchyards, in addition to the numerous headstones made from the Greenmoor Rock from the quarries around Brincliffe Edge, there are many substantial Victorian and Edwardian memorials that are made with a variety of granites. Although I spent only spent 10 minutes, before walking past the war memorial to the bus stop on Fulwood Road, I thought that an introduction to geology could be undertaken here.

Fulwood war memorial

A Geological Recce of Burbage Valley

 

Burbage Quarry

 

My day out to Doncaster on 16th November, to briefly explore Bennetthorpe and to visit Hyde Park Cemetery, proved to be the last of 2024 and, having spent the winter months trying to catch up with my travels in my Language of Stone Blog, I was glad to finally get out again on 22nd February 2025 – on a recce for a Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip to Burbage Valley.

 

The Ordnance Survey map of Burbage Valley

 

For several months, I had not been happy with the way that the group had been operating – especially the behaviour of a member who had been acting as the “co-ordinator and not geologist”, following the medical problems with the group leader - and I made the decision to leave the group after a set-to in January; however, I had previously arranged with John and Trish, who had helped me with the trip to Ilkley Moor the year before, to accompany them on their recce and point out the main points of geological interest on their walk. 

 

The geology of Burbage Valley and the surrounding area

Back in 1995, when assessing the geotourism potential of the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in the Peak District National Park, I surveyed several sites in and around the the Burbage Valley and it wasn't until 2015 that I returned to have another look at Carl Wark, Higger Tor, Burbage Rocks and Burbage Brook.

 

Sphagnum moss at a spring near Upper Burbage Bridge

I noted the very coarse grained deltaic sediments of the Chatsworth Grit, black shales from the Marsden Formation, peat from the Quaternary Period and spring lines, which were emphasised by the presence of Sphagnum moss and other bog loving plants – all of which I thought would make interesting stopping points on a field trip and had raised this at a couple of meetings when itineraries for the year were discussed.

 

Notes from a field trip led by Duncan Hawley of SAGT

 

John and Trish had recently attended a field trip organised by Duncan Hawley of SAGT (Sheffield Area Geology Trust) back in 2019, which highlighted the history and industrial archaeology of the area, and they wanted to repeat this for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group.

 

Longshaw Lodge

 

On the Saturday that we undertook our recce, the car park at the Longshaw Estate was completely full and we had to use the Wooden Pole car park at the south end of the estate, which enabled me take another photo of Longshaw Lodge for the British Listed Buildings website.

 

An unfinished stone trough

 

Our first stop was at the southern end of the old Burbage Quarry, which was cut into the Chatsworth Grit that forms Burbage Edge. Although millstones were the principal product here, there is an unfinished stone trough that was abandoned after it had developed a large crack.

Drill holes to accommodate plug and feathers wedges

In several places, loose blocks show drill holes, into which plug and feathers wedges were inserted to split massive blocks of stone into smaller sizes, from which the millstones were made. Unfinished millstones are scattered around the quarry, which reflects the extremely rapid decline in the industry due to the introduction of steam powered mills, the use of carborundum for making grindstones and a changing taste for eating white bread.

 

A discarded millstone

 

We stopped for our lunch in the part of the quarry, which is popular with rock climbers, where a large rock fall occurred in November 2023 and destroyed some of the climbing routes. Due to the instability of one of the remaining sections, the Eastern Moors Partnership have since dislodged loose blocks by a process known in rock climbing circles as trundling.

 

The rock fall at Burbage Quarry

 

Here, I pointed out to John and Trish how the section of Chatsworth Grit changed from being massively bedded in its lower part to much thinner flaggy beds in the uppermost part, where the cross-bedding is highlighted by sub-aerial weathering.

 

A quarry face showing massive and flaggy beds

From 1941 to 1944, during WWII, the Burbage Valley was widely used for military training by many units and very many of the massive loose boulders below the quarry show bullet holes and damage caused by mortar shells. In particular, uphill assaults were practised here and this explains why the bullet holes are seen on only one side of the rocks, where the targets were set up.

 

A large block of Chatsworth grit with bullet holes

After finding a few more examples of rocks damaged by ammunition, we made our way along the marked public footpath to Carl Wark and stopped briefly at the Grade II listed packhorse bridge (c.1750) over Burbage Brook, which I also photographed for the British Listed Buildings website.

 

The packhorse bridge

A short distance downstream from the bridge, the last point of interest was the stream bank exposure of black shale, which is the only exposure of the Marsden Formation that I have seen along Burbage Valley, where the bedrock is covered with head and some peat. 

 

The outcrop of shale along Burbage Brook

 

The geological map shows that the Verneulites sigma Marine Band occurs in the vicinity, but there is nowhere where the outcrop can be accessed without standing in the brook with waders, to see if it contains goniatite fossils. 

 

Thin beds of sandstone laid down by turbidity currents

 

We had to be content with viewing the outcrop from the opposite side of Burbage Brook, but we could still see that the shale contains a few very thin beds of sandstone, which were deposited by turbidity currents generated by slumping of sediment forming the delta front. Having identified most of the points on Duncan Hawley’s sketch, we made our way through some boggy ground back to the main path and headed back to the car park.

 

A view of Carl Wark (L) and Higger Tor (R)