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| An information panel in Glen Howe Park |
My walk from Crosspool to Shalesmoor in Sheffield had been very productive, with Lydgate Lane, Western Road and Burgoyne Road schools bringing the number of Sheffield Board Schools visited during the year to 23 – not including the Central School buildings centred on Leopold Street – and I also encountered various building stones in Crookes Cemetery.
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| The area around Glen Howe Park and Brightholmlee |
For my next day out, a few days later, I decided to visit Glen Howe Park, a place in Sheffield that I had never heard of before until I discovered it on the Casual Ramblers website, which I had already used to plan a couple of walks in Rotherham earlier in the year.
At 5 km, the walk that had been devised by the Stone to Steel Project was a little too short for my liking and, finding the public footpaths on the Ordnance Survey map, I planned to walk up to Spout House Hill - to see if I could find some of the old quarries - and then down to More Hall Reservoir, before returning to Wharncliffe Side via the hamlet of Brightholmlee.
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| A roundel salvaged from Spring Grove Paper Works |
Having caught the tram from Sheffield city centre to Middlewood Park and Ride, the SL1 Supertram Link bus took me to the Green Lane stop and I then headed up Damasel Lane, where a modern custom built detached house has incorporated two large composite stone roundels into its boundary wall, along with old gateposts.
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| Salvaged roundels incorporated into a boundary wall |
I subsequently discovered that these must have been salvaged from the Spring Grove Paper Mills in nearby Oughtibridge, which was purchased by Peter Dixon, the father of Joseph Dixon who, along with the stonemason John Mills, was the benefactor for Glen Howe Park.
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| The sheep sculpture by Victoria Brailsford |
Arriving at an open green space with a car park, a play area and picnic benches, I was further intrigued by a sculpture of a sheep, which I wasn’t sure of it was there to be just admired or sat upon, but I didn’t see any information about it or the artist; however. I have since discovered that this was made by Victoria Brailsford, who lived in Glen Park Tower rent free, in exchange for producing an agreed amount of artwork in Sheffield.
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| The streambed of Tinker Brook |
Continuing my walk, having stopped to talk with a dog walker and ask about the various paths in Glen Howe Park, I looked down to the Tinker Brook and noted large flat blocks of stone on the stream bed. The British Geological Survey memoir for Barnsley describes as being on the Huddersfield White Rock – a formation that is equivalent to the Chatsworth Grit in the north-west part of South Yorkshire and beyond.
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| Flaggy sandstone in the streambed of Tinker Brook |
Hoping to find a rock exposure, I didn’t collect any samples here, but I noted that the exposures of rock in the streambed were flaggy, a characteristic of the upper part of the Huddersfield White Rock, which is separated from the lower main body of massive sandstone by a thick bed of shale.
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| Glen Howe Tower |
Having found the main path, I soon came across Glen Howe Tower, which was built in 1881 by John Mills and probably uses sandstone from the nearby quarry in the park, but I didn’t get close enough to look at the masonry.
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| Glen Howe Tower |
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