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

 

St. Mary's Church in Wheatley

 

The west end of St. Mary's church

The village of Armthorpe is mainly associated with Markham Main Colliery and, although mentioned in Domesday Book and I saw a couple of buildings that are marked on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map, the Church of St. Leonard and St. Mary is its only listed building. 

 

Our Lady of Sorrows and Saint Francis Roman Catholic church

 

Having had a look at is exterior and interior and collecting a few glaciofluvial pebbles from the churchyard, I then took a few photos of Our Lady of Sorrows and Saint Francis Roman Catholic church (1959), where serpentinite has been used for the door surround, before catching the No. 382 bus to Wheatley. 

 

Views of St. Mary's church

A British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge showed just a couple of buildings in the vicinity, St. Mary’s church (1885) and Strawberry Lock; however, the latter didn’t appear to be easily accessible and I therefore only visited the church, which was designed by Lord Grimthorpe. 

 

A view of the west front

It had been originally been my intention just to take a few record photos, but I was quite curious about the stones used to build the church. Although an overcast day, the walling stone appeared to have quite a noticeable green/grey colour, which I had noticed in St. Bartholomew’s church in Old Whittington the week before. 

 

A detail of walling stone and quoins

 

At St. Bartholomew’s church, the stone used was obtained from a Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation sandstone, the Wingfield Flags, which obtains its colour from the presence of the mineral chlorite, like its northerly equivalent - the Greenmoor Rock.

 

A window in the south aisle

 

The well established railway network enabled the specification of a wide variety of building stones, as an alternative to the local dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation. Ancaster freestone, with its distinctive ripple marks, has been used for the quoins, window surrounds, other dressings and for headstops to the west door. 

 

A headstop

The headstops have in part accumulated a thick black crust, formed by industrial atmospheric pollution and is associated with the formation of calcium sulphate, a soluble salt which can cause great damage when it is absorbed into the pores and then recrystallises. 

 

A headstop

Lord Grimthorpe, then only Sir Edward Beckett Denison, also designed the Church of St. James (1858) in conjunction with Sir George Gilbert Scott, which is built entirely in Ancaster limestone. The headstops here, which are also partially covered with a black crust, are very similar in style and look like they have been carved by the same sculptor, despite a difference of 27 years in age. 

 

A capping stone on a buttress

The capping stones to the buttresses on the west end are made of a cross-bedded, coarse grained and shelly limestone, which I thought is probably Ancaster weatherbed, which is typically 'blue hearted' but here has differentially weathered to reveal a cream colour. 

 

Capping stones on a buttress

 

Back in 1996, I worked for a few months at the Gregory’s Quarry in Mansfield, sawing White Mansfield  dolomitic sandstone, Chilmark calcareous sandstone, Ancaster hard white limestone and Ancaster weatherbed. The latter is very dense and, when feeling its resistance to the saw blade, I understood why this generally very durable variety of Ancaster stone has been used for weathering courses. 

 

Over the years, I have seen very many examples of differentially weathered Ancaster freestone that reveals its ‘streaky bacon’ texture, but I was very surprised to see a section of a buttress where the conversion of calcium carbonate into calcium sulphate seems to be in progress - a process that results in a significant increase in volume. 

 

Red sandstone used for the plinth course and quoins

 

The plinth course and the quoins to the lower sections of the buttresses are made with a dull red sandstone that is both massive and very coarse grained with small pebbles and medium grained plane bedded varieties. 

 

Another view of red sandstone used for the plinth course and quoins

I have encountered reddened medium grained gritstone from the Corbar Grit/Ashover Grit at Birchover and Cromford along the Derwent Valley, but I don’t recall ever seeing small pebbles in these. A Google search mentions that reddened gritstone is found at Spofforth and Follifoot in North Yorkshire, both of which were connected to the railway network when the church was built. 

 

A detail of the quoins used in a buttress

 

One section of the plinth course is badly weathered and very friable and I managed to obtain a small piece of this, which subsequently partially disintegrated. Immediately below the blackened surface, the sandstone is quite reddened, but the body of the stone is a dull mauve colour. 

 

A heavily weathered stone in the plinth course

Comparing the piece from the plinth course with a specimen of the Rotherham Red variety of the Mexborough Rock, which comprises a drill core from my house when a new boiler was installed, the colours are very similar. Examining them both with the naked eye and a hand lens, although the former is poorly cemented, they are both medium grained and the mineralogy also appears to be similar - although petrographic analysis would be needed to confirm this.

 

Comparing the sample from St. Mary's church with my Wentworth scale

  

The generally very coarse texture rules out the use of Rotherham Red sandstone, as this is fine to medium grained and in my experience doesn’t contain pebbles. Although the geological memoir mentions a quarry at Spofforth and that the Plumpton grits did produce building stone, referring to Spofforth castle, the Building Stones Database for England map explorer doesn’t show quarries at either Spofforth or Follifoot. 

 

Sandstone from St. Mary's church (top) and my house (bottom)

At some point, the deterioration of the stone to the plinth course will require it to be restored, using a red sandstone that matches the original as closely as possible. As seen in the Triton Stone Library, now in the Redmires Building at Sheffield Hallam University, the vast majority of red sandstones quarried today are from the Permian and Triassic periods, with these being much brighter in colour and obtaining a good match is therefore not easy.

 

The Triton Stone Library in the Redmires Building