 |
| A geological map of the area around Ecclesfield and Grenoside |
Although I had essentially completed my survey of the mediaeval churches built of Rotherham Red sandstone, when visiting St. Mary Magdalene in Whiston – 9 months after starting in Treeton - and I had since visited the Tower of London, the weather was still fair and I made the most of a fine mid-October day to explore the "Minster of the Moors".
 |
| An information board in Ecclesfield |
The parish of Ecclesfield, a few miles north of Sheffield, has been fully explored by archaeologists and even though a church was not mentioned in Domesday Book, various Romano-British finds indicate the village has an ancient history. Several listed buildings can be found in and around the village and, in addition to St.Mary's church, the old Ecclesfield Priory provides another good example of a mediaeval ecclesiastical building in South Yorkshire.
Set upon a sandstone within the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation, the old village has grown alongside a brook that once had sufficient power to drive a local industry – as seen in innumerable other places in Sheffield.
 |
| An old quarry in Ecclesfield |
An old quarry, now used as a shooting range, displays a section of mainly thin bedded and laminated sandstones and siltstones, with the more massive and competent beds providing the best building stone and the flaggy stone used for dry stone walling.
 |
| A few examples of vernacular architecture in Ecclesfield |
A quick walk around the village reveals a wide variety of vernacular buildings, using the local buff/brown stone for the walling and boundary walls but with a massive and generally more uniformly buff coloured sandstone for the stone dressings.
 |
| The old Quaker Meeting House |
The stone for these dressings and the ashlar masonry to the more substantial buildings is likely to have been quarried from the higher ground around Grenoside, where the sandstone was once extensively quarried for building stone and grindstones.
 |
| A general view of typical stone walling in Ecclesfield |
Hi Scott. Fascinating, thank you. I was exploring the ancient woods behind the church, was pondering if the outcrops of thinly bedded (and cross bedded in places) belonged to the Greenmoor, Penistone or Grenoside sandstones.
ReplyDeleteI found an interesting piece of iron rich rock that looks like acast, though it could be something more 'geological' in origin. They are ancient woodlands and I know frim my own family history of file cutters in the area that there was a lot of activity.
I don't know Ecclesfield very well, but here is a link to the BGS map: http://www.largeimages.bgs.ac.uk/iip/mapsportal.html?id=1001576
DeleteThe nearest sandstones of those that you mentioned are the Penistone Flags; however, the unnamed Pennine Lower Coal Measures sandstone often contain flaggy and cross-bedded sandstones...