A Trip to Worsbrough Village

A view of the landscape from Worsbrough Village

After a flurry of activity relating to my interests in the Sheffield U3A Geology Group - planning days out in Monsal Dale and Sheffield – I continued my investigation of the mediaeval churches of South Yorkshire by public transport with a trip to Worsbrough Village, a small village that lies on the outskirts of Barnsley. 

A trip from Treeton to Worsbrough Village

To take advantage of the opening of St. Mary’s church on a Wednesday morning, I got to Sheffield in plenty of time to catch the Stagecoach No.2 bus at 09:42 but, due to an incident on the M1 motorway, this turned up an hour late; however, to everyone’s surprise, the driver stopped half way through the journey and announced that he had reached the limit of his allowed driving time and that we would have to get off and wait for the next bus. 

A general view of St. Mary's church

Arriving in Worsbrough at 12:05 pm, the church was shut and there was not a sign of life in the adjacent Old School where the congregation take refreshments after the service. With the sun shining, I decided to make a quick photographic record of its exterior and then go and have a walk around the village to look at it vernacular architecture. 

 

The geology around Worsbrough Village

The geological map of the area around Worsbrough Village shows a succession of minor sandstones from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, with the only named sandstone being the Kent’s Rock, which I only knew from its distinct escarpment in Rawmarsh in Rotherham, but which I had not knowingly seen as a building stone. 

Iron rich sandstone in a boundary wall

Looking at various boundary walls and general walling stone for the cottages, the sandstone is generally thinly bedded and often flaggy, with the colour varying from yellow/buff to dark brown – the latter forming a high proportion of the stonework and reflecting a very high iron content. 

A house dated 1915 on Worsbrough Road

The British Geological Survey memoir records that the Kent’s Rock, in places within the Barnsley region, has bands and nodules of ironstone but there are no details for Worsbrough village. Victorian maps show a few quarries within a distance of 1 km, from which the stone for the buildings would probably have been taken. 

The Old School

For the larger farm buildings and houses, larger blocks of medium grained sandstone of yellowish colour are frequent in the walls and are used for quoins and dressings. In places, very large blocks have been used for door jambs and lintels and have large scale Liesegang  rings. 

Large blocks of sandstone with Liesegang rings

At Worsbrough Hall and Worsbrough Hall Flats on the edge of the village, the sandstone used for the ashlar to a range of buildings is yellowish in colour, with some iron banding discernible beneath the dirt and natural patina but, being private property, I couldn’t get close enough to take a good look at the details.

Worsbrough Hall and Worsbrough Hall Flats