Commonwealth War Graves in Crookes

 

The regimental crest of the Machine Gun Corps

For a geologist, the walk that I had started at Crosspool and continued in Crookes Cemetery had so far thrown up many points of interest, with the discovery of building stones that were not familiar to me and the Monks Park oolitic limestone from Wiltshire – a choice by the architect that I found a bit strange, given the availability of Ancaster limestone and other very reputable limestones from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation.

 

The headstone of Gunner G.N. Armitage

When walking along the path from the cemetery gates to the chapel, I noticed one of the very distinctive Commonwealth War Grave Commission Portland limestone headstones to Gunner G.N. Armitage of the Royal Artillery, whose regimental crest I had not yet seen.

 

The headstone of Private L.J. Williams

Since my visit to Burngreave Cemetery, where there is an array of Special Memorial headstones in front of the war memorial whenever I visit a churchyard or cemetery I have made a point of looking for the Commonwealth War Graves and I found a few more of the 70 headstones, which are split equally between victims of WWI and WWII – starting with another Portland limestone headstone to Private L.J. Williams of the General Service Corps.

 

The General Service Corps regimental crest

 

Except for headstones made of Hopton Wood Stone that I had seen when living in Bakewell, all of the headstones that I had seen to date were made of Portland limestone I was therefore very interested to discover the headstone of Private A.W. Leach of the York and Lancaster Regiment.

 

The headstone of Private A.W. Leach

Although very familiar with the regimental crest from the Boer War Memorial in Weston Park and the York and Lancaster Regimental Museum at Clifton Park in Rotherham, I was not familiar with the stone used for the headstone.

 

The York and Lancaster regimental crest

From subsequent research, I have learned that this is Botticino marble from Brescia in northern Italy, which is just one of the stones that have been used as an alternative to Portland stone when an original headstone needed to be replaced - either tried experimentally or chosen on economic grounds. This headstone was installed in 1980 and the fine calcite veins have been weathered away to leave the stone with a distinctive texture.

 

Weathered Portland limestone headstones

 

The Portland stone headstones of Aircraftman 1st Class G.E. Talbot and Private J.H. Handover, of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps respectively, have been significantly weathered, with fragments of fossil shells standing proud and a loss of the details of the regimental crests and inscriptions.

 

The headstone of Driver C.H. Eagers

I next encountered the headstone of Driver C.H. Eagers of the Royal Engineers, which is the first granite Commonwealth War Graves memorial that I had seen. Although I could readily identify a handful of granites that were commonly used by Victorian architects and included these and a few others in the Triton Stone Library, I did not recognise this.

 

The Royal Engineers regimental crest

From the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, I now know that this headstone is made from Scottish Creetown granite in Dumfries and Galloway - out of which the Liverpool Docks and London Bridge have been built - and that it is the original headstone erected in 1921.

 

Various headstones in an unknown blue/grey granite

Continuing with my random wandering around the cemetery, I came across the headstones of  Private J.L. Brundell of the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, Private W.W. Carter of the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) and Private J.W. Beardshaw of the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), but I have not yet identified the darker grey/blue granite that they are made of.

 

The King's Own Royal Lancaster regimental crest

 

On my next trip to Crookes Cemetery, I will try and find further examples but, on this occasion, I still had two more Sheffield Board Schools to find and headed up towards the centre of Crookes; however, even though I had seen plenty of examples of Portland stone headstones and an example of a Royal Artillery regimental crest, I just had to stop and photograph the unusual double headstones of Gunners D.W. Piper and G.J. Chandler.

The headstones of Gunners Piper and Chandler