An Investigation of the Shirtcliffe Valley

An investigation of the Shirtcliffe Valley

The beginning of June 2020 coincided with week 12 of the COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions and, having safely travelled on the X54 bus from Treeton to Harthill and back via Todwick, my next trip, using the No.73 bus involved a walk through the Shirtcliffe Valley on another sunny day.

An Ordnance Survey map of the Shirtcliffe Valley

I am sure that I would never have discovered this place if it wasn’t for the travel restrictions that had been imposed during various lockdowns which, as I write, are still continuing in the UK. When walking back from Normanton Hill, I noticed paths on each side of the A57 trunk road and wondered where they went to and, having noticed on Google Maps that they passed through woodland, I decided to investigate.

The geology around the Shirtcliffe Valley

The Geology of Britain Map Viewer, which I had been using for research at the time, shows quite a thick unnamed sandstone from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, which forms a prominent feature further to the south-east, where it was formerly named the Woodhouse Rock - after the village that sits upon it.

A map showing the Swallow Wood (SW) coal

The strata below this, which Shirtcliff Brook follows in its upper course, are generically described as interbedded grey mudstone, siltstone, pale grey sandstone and commonly coal seams, with the Swallow Wood coal being marked on my old printed 1:50,000 map.

The Trans Pennine Trail at Richmond Road

Starting at the entrance on Richmond Road, I walked along the tree lined path that runs parallel to the A57 for about 250 metres, after which I came to open ground where a sign announced that I had arrived at Smelter Wood.

Smelter Wood

With my first thought being that the name was derived from the smelting of the iron ore that is commonly found in the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation above coal seams, I followed the path into the wood and found a large sewage pipe straddling Shirtcliff Brook. 

A sewage pipe crossing Shirtcliff Brook

After a brief attempt to follow the brook along its bank, to see if if I could find any rock exposures, I soon gave up and returned to the main path that forms part of the Trans Pennine Trail before coming across another path that took me down to an open meadow.

A view of Shirtcliff Brook in Smelter Wood

Here, I encountered Pat Howells of the Friends of Shirtcliffe, with whom I had a long socially distanced chat during which I discovered that the valley was once quarried for sandstone, mined for coal and that a coal seam was exposed just above the sewage pipe that I had just come from.

The Swallow Wood coal seam as found in various boreholes

Subsequent research reveals that the Swallow Wood coal seam was once of considerable economic importance and as well as being mined at Treeton Colliery and others in the district, four drift mines operated from 1920 to 1947 along the Shirtcliffe Valley and the seam is described in some detail on pp. 97-99 of the Geological Survey of Great Britain memoir.

In search of rock outcrops along the Shirtcliffe Valley

Realising that time was moving on and that I would have to come back another time to investigate the features that Pat had highlighted, we exchanged details before I carried on down the path in search of rock outcrops.

A view of the topography along the Shirtcliffe Valley