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| A crest at Smallage Farm |
On leaving Falconer Wood, during my last COVID-19 Lockdown walk in April 2020, I headed up the escarpment of Treeton Rock to Smallage Farm, where a date of 1866 is marked on an ornately carved keystone to an arched doorway at the side of the road.
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| Rotherham Red sandstone at Smallage Farm |
The walling here, and the Rotherham Red sandstone farm buildings that I could see from the road, were the only points of interest here and, heading back down Smallage Lane towards Fence, I found a vantage point where I could see the surrounding landscape.
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| A view towards Treeton Wood |
To the north, I could see Treeton Wood and Treeton Grange in the distance and, to the north-west, the Waverley Estate, the Advanced Manufacturing Park and 70 Acre Hill in the mid-distance now occupy a vast swathe of land – from Fence to Tinsley – where there were once various coal mines.
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| A view towards the Waverley Estate and 70 Acre Hill |
Carrying on down Smallage Lane to the foot of the escarpment, I could only get a glimpse of Falconer Farm through the woodland but there is a distinct change in slope to an area of relatively level land here, with a small stream marked on the Ordnance Survey map.
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| A view of Falconer Farm |
Looking to the south, the electricity pylons on the high ground provide useful reference points and, when referring to the 1:50,000 scale British Geological Survey map, the high ground here is seen to be underlain by a sandstone that is named the ‘Oaks Rock’.
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| An escarpment of Oaks Rock |
This may not correspond with the well developed Oaks Rock in the Barnsley district, as I had seen at Wath-upon-Dearne but this, together with an unnamed sandstone that lies beneath it, forms much of the high ground that runs towards Swallownest.
The geological map shows that the road from Smallage Farm to Fence also crosses two marine bands - the Mansfield Marine Band and the Clowne Marine Band – that record the incursion of the sea over the low lying coastal plains and delta system in which the Coal Measures strata were deposited, as well as a couple of coal seams.
A generalized vertical section shows that these strata can vary in thickness and lateral extent and, in places, they are sometimes missing. During the excavation of pit shafts, the drilling of exploratory boreholes and other surveys of the coal mines, their position would have been calculated but none of them make any kind of impression on the topography.
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| A concrete post at Falconer Farm |
Stopping only to look at the inscribed concrete post at the entrance of Falconer Farm and the ‘granitic’ road setts used in the gateposts, I continued down Smallage Lane, where the hedgerows prevented me from surveying the landscape to either side, and finally arrived at Fence.
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| Road setts used in a gate post |
In the 1840’s, before the building of the North Midland Railway, Fence Colliery was sunk here and the short terraces of houses on Falconer Lane, which were erected for its workers at the turn of the C20, are the last remaining evidence of it.
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| Terraced houses in Fence |
From here, I took a few photographs of the escarpment that I had walked along from Hail Mary Hill and then carried on back to Treeton along the path by Treeton Dyke, before taking the first available path back into Hail Hill Mary Wood.
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| A view of the escarpment |
Connecting with the main path through the wood, which in places is lined by an avenue of mature beech trees that are covered with graffiti carved into the bark, I followed the escarpment back to the lowland area at the back of Hail Mary Hill.
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| Beech trees in Hail Hill Mary Wood |
To finish my walk, I then headed north back up to the escarpment of Treeton Rock, to see if there were any signs of the old sandstone quarry here, but finding nothing I quickly made my way back along the path to Treeton.
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| A circular walk from Treeton to Smallage Farm |
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