An Exploration of Barnburgh - Part 2

Barnburgh Hall Dovecote

Continuing my investigation of Barnburgh, the persistance of the yellow colouration of the limestone here is extremely unusual and I had only previously seen this in the lowermost beds of the Cadeby Formation, where it is underlain by the Yellow Sands Formation.

A house on Hall Lane

In the associated historic buildings, where this formation is found, yellow stained limestone is seen in the masonry, as odd blocks or small sections of walling, but I have never seen it throughout a whole structure. 

A house on Hall Lane

My immediate thought that a potential quarry source for the limestone to build the village could be from Barnburgh Crags, which is 1 km to the north-east of the village. When surveying it for the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment in 2007, I was struck by how yellow the limestone was, compared to the numerous other sites on the Magnesian Limestone that I had previously seen. 

Well bedded yellow limestone at Barnburgh Crags

Although I thought that the well defined vertical cliff face would very likely be the result of quarrying, the only reference to a quarry on the limestone that I have found - on an Ordnance Survey map (1854 and 1907) - is at the north-west end of the crags, near to the Hickleton Road; however, the tourist information panel in Barnburgh refers to the 'Craggs' as the source of stone for the Doncaster Corn Exchange (1870). 

Limestone and purple sandstone in a boundary wall

The same maps show a small quarry on the Wickersley Rock near to the site of St.Helen’s chapel, which could possibly be the source of the small amount of grey/purple sandstone that I saw in a few boundary walls, as well as a substantial house on High Street. 

A sandstone house on High Street

Especially where subjected to rising damp, this sandstone is soft and not very durable and, wherever it has been used, it is deeply eroded and exhibits cavernous decay – the result of recrystallization of salts from the groundwater in the pores of the sandstone.

Eroded sandstone on High Street

Barnburgh Hall was demolished in 1969 by the National Coal Board, apparently because it was severly affected by mining subsidence, but the outhouse, garden wall and gate piers still exist and are conserved as listed buildings, together with the dovecote.

An old sandstone gatepost 

I finished my brief exploration of Barnburgh with a walk along Hall Lane, where there are several limestone cottages that mostly have red pantile roofs, which is the traditional material used in vernacular architecture all along the Magnesian Limestone escarpment.

Smithy Cottage