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

A Further Look at Leeds Central Library

 

A depiction of the tax collector carved in Caen stone

When photographing the listed buildings on Great George Street, I took a short diversion to Leeds Central Library, by George Corson, which I had visited in the summer of 2018 and had later written Language of Stone Blog posts that briefly described the exterior, the marbles and granites and the limestones used in its interior. 

 

The railings on the Calverley Street elevation

 

I had also provided photographs for the British Listed Buildings website and I had no reason to visit it again, except to have another quick look at the owls on the cast iron railings, the various decorative stones used for the doorway and vestibule on Calverley Street and the fine Caen stone carving in the entrance hall. 

 

A detail of the Shap light granite 

 

Although the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds (BSHL) mentions the sandstone used for the exterior, Shap light granite with orthoclase feldspar phenocrysts for the steps, Peterhead and Rubislaw granites used for the columns and the Caen stone, it surprisingly doesn’t make any attempt to identify the Devonshire marbles in the vestibule, which are actually polished limestones and not true marbles. 

 

A Devonshire marble column

 

Decorative Stone The Complete Sourcebook by Monica Price only includes Ashburton marble, which I am quite familiar with from its use in Sheffield Central Library and Sheffield City Hall, and madrepore marble from Devonshire, but I might need to purchase the books by Gordon Walkden, if these are still available, before I could throw further light on these. 

 

Devonshire Marbles by Gordon Walkden

 

The BSHL also doesn't mention the very dark alabaster that has been used for panels and the elaborate screen that decorate the doorway from the vestibule to the entrance hall, which Susan Wrathmell in the Leeds Pevsner Architectural Guide says is by Farmer and Brindley from London, who were responsible for the sculpture on the Natural History Museum. 

 

An alabaster panel

The Caen stone, which King William I first brought to Britain after the Norman Conquest and was used for the White Tower at the Tower of London, Canterbury Cathedral and Rochester Cathedral, is very suited to fine carving and all the work seen is by John Wormald Appleyard. 

 

Carved Caen stone above the entrance to the lending library

 

I didn't have time to have another good look at the magnificent staircase, where various animals, including dogs and a lion, and grotesques adorn the handrails, which are made out of Hopton Wood limestone from Derbyshire. 

 

A detail of gryphons carved in Caen stone

 

The Caen stone capitals to the Peterhead and Rubislaw granite columns, gryphons and a roundel depicting a collector to the screen above the entrance to the lending library, which was formerly the pay office, are nevertheless fine examples of Wormald's carving.

 

A capital carved in Caen stone

 

At the Church of St. John the Baptist (1888) at Ranmoor in Sheffield, the canopy to the reredos provides an excellent example of carving in Caen stone by the eminent sculptor Frank Tory and St. Peter's church (1863-1870) in Birstall has a very ornate Caen stone pulpit. I have also seen a much simpler pulpit at St. Mary's church (1869) at Walkley in Sheffield, which seems to indicate that this stone was a very popular material with Victorian architects.

 

Pink Peterhead and grey Rubislaw granites

 

Great George Street in Leeds

 

A statue at the former Leeds School Board offices

 

Having photographed Oxford Chambers, Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Oxford Place and Britannia Buildings, next on my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge were a mid C19 bollard on the corner next to No. 31 Great George Street, a pair of red brick built C19 shops and Nos. 33-33A and Nos. 35-41 - all of which have very little of interest to this Language of Stone Blog. 

 

A bollard and mid C19 listed brick buildings on Graet George Street

 

Retracing my steps along Great George Street, I stopped very briefly to photograph the ram’s head on a keystone at the rear of Leeds Town Hall (1858) before arriving at the corner of Calverley Street, where I intended to have another quick look at Leeds Central Library, which I had first visited in August 2018. 

 

The ram's head keystone at the rear of Leeds Town Hall

Before turning down Calverley Street to the library, which I will further describe in my next post, the imposing Grade II* listed Palladian Revival style Civic Court (1879-81) caught my eye. This is another building by the Scottish architect George Corson, whose work on Wellington Street and Hepper House on East Parade I had encountered earlier on my walk 

 

The former Leeds School Board offices

As in Sheffield, the Leeds School Board was set up shortly after the introduction of W.E. Forster’s Elementary Education Act of 1870 and this was originally built as its offices, with the Historic England (HE) description mentioning that they contained board and committee rooms on the ground floor, together with offices for clerks and attendant officers. 

 

The entrance to the former Leeds School Board offices

 

The architect Richard Adams was the board architect from 1873 until 1879, when other architects were commissioned to undertake their work, including George Corson who, like Charles John Innocent in Sheffield, was criticised for the extravagance of his design. 

 

The Leeds coat of arms and inscription in raised lettering

At high level, the words: 'LEEDS SCHOOL BOARD' are carved in relief beneath the Leeds coat of arms, which features and owl and on each side of the central entrance there are half size statues of a schoolgirl and schoolboy, by Matthew Taylor of Leeds. 

 

A statue at the former Leeds School Board offices

 

I didn’t look closely at the sandstone but the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds (BSHL) refer to Building News (1881, p.459), which states that Burley-in-Wharfedale stone from the Addingham Edge Grit has been used for the rusticated basement, with Pool Bank stone from the Caley Crags Grit for the superstructure above – although the Building Stones Database of England map explorer show the Pool Bank Quarries as being located on the Addingham Edge Grit. 

 

The Pool Bank Quarries on the Addingham Edge Grit

 

A couple of years earlier, I had seen the Addingham Edge Grit when walking along the lower footpath at Otley Chevin during a Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip, where the crags and old quarry faces are heavily iron stained. The British Geological Survey describes it as varying from fine to very coarse grained, with sporadic pebbles, but I have never seen it used as a building stone and will make a point of looking at the building again when I next visit this part of Leeds. 

 

Nos. 6 to 14 Great George Street

Continuing up Great George Street, I just took a single photo of Nos. 6 to 14 (1848) built for J.F. Clark, who was a coach builder. The rusticated ground floor and the dressings are built with a uniformly buff coloured sandstone, but I didn’t investigate this any further and carried on to the Leonardo Building (c.1900). 

 

The Leonardo Building

 

This was built as the offices of Chorley and Pickersgill, a firm of printers that operated from the Electric Press Building (c.1900) on the opposite corner. Again, I just took a single photo of this building and didn’t look at the sandstone used for the entrance on the splay and for the dressings on the floors above. The adjoining Thoresby Building (1900), which was built for the Pupil Teachers' College by Walter Samuel Braithwaite, is another large brick building with sandstone dressings that I just viewed from a distance. 

 

The Thoresby Building

 

On the opposite side of the road is Cathedral House, the presbytery to St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, which was not part of my Photo Challenge, but I was quite interested in the design of the building, which is described by HE as the Arts and Craft Gothic Revival style. 

 

Cathedral House

The bricks and stonework were quite dirty and I didn’t take much notice of them, but the BSHL notes that sand faced Suffolk white bricks are used here, which I can’t recall seeing since I have lived in South Yorkshire, with the Ketton stone - an oolitic limestone from near Stamford - used for the door surround and dressings. 

Cathedral House

Next to this is Cathedral Chambers (1900) by John Mitchell Bottomley, which was built as a masonic hall but has since been converted into offices. The ground floor is built with a brown glazed brick plinth, red brick for the ground floor and pinkish coloured brick for the first floor – another material that is unusual in the region. 

 

Cathedral Chambers

The BSHL refer to the Building News (1900, p.73), which describes the extensive use of red Corncockle stone from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland for the door surround and window dressings, which are all slightly blackened. 

 

The front elevation of Cathedral Chambers

 

Although I had obtained a sample of this Permian sandstone for the Triton Stone Library, which is now housed in the Redmires Building at Sheffield Hallam University and has an accompanying website, I have never seen this bright red sandstone used in a building. Crossing over to have a better look at the sandstone, I was interested to see that the foundation stone is made of Devonian Shap dark granite, which has large rectangular pink orthoclase feldspar phenocrysts. 

 

The foundation stone of Cathedral Chambers

The last building to photograph on Great George Street was the former City of Leeds School (1889) by Kelly and Birchall, which is one of several large brick buildings in this part of Leeds that were used for education and I only viewed it from a distance to take a few general photos. I didn't get close enough to examine the sandstone dressings, but the BSHL identify it as coarse grained Rough Rock that is only suitable for bold carving.

 

The former City of Leeds School