A Walk Down Wickersley Road

 

A detail of a sandstone outcrop on Wickersley Road

Leaving Great Bank Quarry, having had a good look at the Pennine Upper Coal Measures Formation sandstone here, I walked up Great Bank Road to Wickersley Road and, with the sun still shining brightly, I decided to walk back to Rotherham instead of catching a bus. 

 

A boundary wall built with sandstone from the Wickersley Rock

Before reaching the Stag Roundabout, I passed several boundary walls to the inter-war houses on the north side of Wickersley Road, which are made of quite large blocks of light brown/yellowish medium grained sandstone. This looks very similar to the sandstone that I have subsequently seen in boundary walls and the historic buildings of Wickersley, where locally quarried Wickersley Rock has mostly been used.

 

A rubble masonry boundary wall on Wickersley Road

Continuing beyond Stag Roundabout, there are further examples of similar walling on both sides of Wickersley Road but, after 200 yards, there is a stretch of rubble walling – now being disrupted by trees – that has quite a different character.

 

A detail of the rubble masonry

This stone has physical properties that are consistent with the sandstone seen in Great Bank Quarry, which was open when the 1855 Ordnance Survey map was published, but is marked as an old quarry onthe 1901 revision. The wall forms the boundary to an inter-war detached house and is presumably a relic of a structure that was built to mark the edge of the open fields, which were here when the quarry was operating.

 

Cubic House

 

A little further down Wickersley Road, I stopped to take a few photos of Cubic House, an Art Deco house designed by an engineer for his own occupation, whose original interior I once had the privilege of seeing – but which has now been modernised, with the removal of Crittall windows and other unique fixtures.

 

The outcrop of sandstone on Wickersley Road

After taking a few photos of the alterations, which I thought quite distasteful, I then crossed the road to take a good look at the small outcrop of Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation sandstone, which forms the foundations of the boundary walls of more inter-war houses that have been built along this road.

 

The location of the outcrop on Wickersley Road

 

The British Geological Survey map shows that, from Great Bank Road to this point, I had already crossed the Highgate Coal, the Shafton Marine Band and a fault on my walk so far and I was therefore very interested in this outcrop – which I am sure that most people would barely notice.

 

The outcrop of sandstone on Wickersley Road

Obviously, having my Estwing hammer with me, I chipped off a couple of small samples of the flaggy sandstone here, which is similar in colour and texture to the fine sandstone found at Great Bank Quarry – only for a nosey neighbour to confront me when about to continue with my walk.

 

Samples from the outcrop on Wickersley Road

Taking the time to explain my interest in the geology of Rotherham – dating back to the time of my involvement with the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group – I continued along Wickersley Road for a short distance, where I took a photograph of the Abdy Rock and Kent’s Rock that form the skyline, before dropping down into Herringthorpe playing fields and heading off towards Clifton Park.

 

A view across Herringthorpe playing fields