The Building Stones of Sheffield - Part 4

A detail of a Kilkenny limestone seat on the Moor

By the time that the Sheffield U3A Geology Group had finished looking at the magnificent decorative stones in the interior of Sheffield Town Hall, they had encountered a wide variety of sandstones, limestones, marbles and granites and a few members decided that they had seen enough buildings for one day. 

Sheffield City Hall

Most of the group, however, stayed for the last leg of the walk around Sheffield city centre and, by request, we firstly went to have a quick look at Sheffield City Hall – built out of Darley Dale gritstone and opened in 1932. 

A detail of polished Ashburton marble

Briefly stopping to look at the stone indents used to repair bomb damage from WWII, the wall panelling provides further examples of Hopton Wood limestone and the door surrounds to the entrance shows Ashburton marble – as used in Sheffield Town Hall and Sheffield Central Library – at its best, with the fossil sponges being clearly visible. 

A Hopton Wood limestone lion inside Sheffield City Hall

The Hopton Wood limestone lions were originally on the stage of Sheffield City Hall, but they were for some reason relocated to the offices of Tarmac in Matlock – when I first saw them when undertaking a survey of the RIGS (Regionally Geological Sites) in the Peak District National Park, when living in Bakewell. 

A general view of Charter Square

We then moved on to Sheffield's most recent public space at Charter Square, where we again encountered Chinese granite for the paving – designed to match the colour and texture of the Spanish and Portuguese granites previously used around Fargate. 

A Hall Dale sandstone seat in Charter Square

The sandstone used in the seating is the very distinctive Hall Dale sandstone, which in this instance has pink/buff variegation, and the rough boulders – which contain fine beds of coal and some unusual sedimentary structures. 

A rough block of sandstone with fine beds of coal

Although by now, a few members of the Sheffield U3A Geology Group had left to do some shopping or undertake other tasks – which they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do if they had been in the middle of the Peak District or other places – the remainder of the group accompanied me to take a good look at the seating in the Moor. 

Kilkenny limestone seating on the Moor

I reported on the first phase of this development for the German stone trade magazine StonePlus in 2010, which highlighted the work of Matt Black and Pip Hall, but I hadn’t noticed the seating areas at the top of the Moor before - a celebration of 100 years of stainless steel in Sheffield. 

Dry and wet Kilkenny limestone

Here, like the others at the bottom end of the Moor, the Kilkenny limestone seats have lost their original black colour produced by a fine honed finish – due to the natural degradation of the limestone by carbonic acid in rainwater and the atmosphere, but the fine examples of letter cutting and sandblasting can still be clearly seen.

A detail of sandblasted Kilkenny limestone