Another Walk Around Wentworth

 

An eroded dolomitic limestone carving

In retrospect, when planning my circular walk from Wentworth to Elsecar, instead of worrying about having to get back to Rotherham - when the service of the No. 136 bus was at its worst - I would have explored the historic architecture of Elsecar in greater depth.

 

The Old Holy Trinity church

Arriving from Elsecar at Main Street in Wentworth, 50 minutes before the bus was due, my first thought was to go and have another look at the Old Holy Trinity church – a redundant church now in the hands of the Churches Conservation Trust, which had always been open ever since I had first visited it many years ago.

 

Highly weathered sculpture at Old Holy Trinity church

No doubt because of the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, it was closed and I was prevented from again seeing its magnificent monuments but, as a photographer, I always try and capture this wonderful church in a different light. This time, the remaining figurative depicting birds and animals, which are extremely weathered, were well illuminated.

 

Weathered and scoured sandstone

 

As a geologist, I am always on the lookout for interesting examples of building stones and on the south elevation of the remaining wall of the C17, the locally quarried sandstone is deeply scoured and this contrasts strongly with the dense ironstone nodules that occasionally protrude from it.

 

An ironstone nodule

Having a quick wander around the churchyard, the memorials are dominated by plain headstones made almost certainly from Greenmoor Rock, which once had a great reputation for its ability to be cut with fine lettering and its durability. The Victorian memorials are more elaborately carved but the earlier Georgian headstones most impressed me, simply for the sheer size of the slabs used.

 

Georgian headstones

Leaving the churchyard, I headed down to Main Street and, making the most of the bright sunshine, I took a few record photographs of the tied cottages that line this road and which have their woodwork painted green – a characteristic of houses on the Fitzwilliam Wentworth Estate.

 

Vernacular architecture on Main Street

Continuing to the junction with Hague Lane, I photographed Wentworth war memorial for the British Listed Buildings website and, although much earlier than I normally would, I decided to end my day in Wentworth in the usual way – a pint of Theakston's Old Peculier in the beer garden of the Rockingham Arms, to while away the 25 minutes before my bus back to Rotherham.

 

Wentworth war memorial

I joined the queue that had formed at the bar, only to be told that I had to find a table in the busy beer garden and place my order from there with an app. This I did, only to subsequently discover that to obtain my pint of Old Peculier, or other real ales, I had to order directly from the bar!

 

The Rockingham Arms

With 15 minutes wasted, my turn to order arrived, only to be told this time that it might take 10 minutes to bring it to me in the beer garden. At this point I simply gave up and, while waiting for my bus, I instead had a close look at an outbuilding at the Rockingham Arms.

 

An outbuilding at the Rockingham Arms

Unusually, it is entirely built out of Carboniferous sandstone that is bright red in colour and, in a few places contains dense iron nodules but, like a similar stone used in an outbuilding at the George and Dragon pub just up the road, its provenance still remains a mystery. 

 

Ironstone in an outbuilding at the Rockingham Arms