 |
A stream channel cutting though a deposit of head
|
 |
The Longshaw Estate
|
I was by now heading away from the gritstone edge and entered the former shooting estate of the Duke of Rutland, which was purchased by the people of Sheffield and donated to the National Trust in 1931. The landscape here is rough grassland, with some woodland, which is quite different in character to the bleak heather and bracken covered moors.
 |
Open grassland at the Longshaw Estate
|
Except to collect another specimen of pinkish coloured Chatsworth Grit from a small detached block in Yarncliff Wood, which was again distinctly weathered on the surface and quite friable, I was mainly interested in finding the most direct path to Fox House.
 |
A specimen of Chatsworth Grit (21mm diameter coin)
|
In one or two places, the landscape is traversed by streams, which have cut down through the soil into the subsoil to leave a channel where the streambed is littered with small subangular blocks of gritstone and coarse gravel – as I had already seen at a few places on my walk.
 |
A stream channel
|
I was particularly interested in one of these, where the character is completely different on the upstream and downstream side of the path that crosses it, with it quite suddenly turning from a shallow channel to one with a vertical side that is more than 1.5 metres deep.
 |
| The profile of the channel downstream |
The moorlands and the slopes beneath the escarpments are covered in loose boulders of Chatsworth Grit of various sizes, which became detached from the bedrock and were moved downslope by the process of solifluction in periglacial areas to form an unconsolidated deposit known as head. Although I have seen many landscapes that are covered in overgrown head, I hadn’t seen a section like this exposed before.
 |
A section through a deposit of head in the stream bank
|
Along the streambed, there are angular and sub-rounded blocks of large cobble and small boulder sized gritstone, which are also seen in the upper part of the stream bank exposure. These are embedded in an orange sandy matrix, which constitutes the bulk of the lower part of the section.
 |
Boulder strewn grassland
|
Continuing along the path to Granby Wood past more grassland strewn with boulders, I encountered a small shallow quarry, where I again stopped to collect another sample of Chatsworth Grit, but the piece that I collected was so friable that it has not been added to my collection.
 |
A small quarry
|
Arriving at the pond on the Longshaw Estate, I stopped briefly to take in the view of Hathersage Moor, which includes the well known landmarks of Higger Tor, Carl Wark and Burbage Rocks that are also formed by the Chatsworth Grit.
 |
A view of Hathersage Moor
|
Finally reaching the Grade II Listed Longshaw Lodge, I took a few photographs of this and the adjoining chapel for the British Listed Buildings website, but they are not accessible to the general public and I was therefore only able to see them from a distance.
 |
Longshaw Lodge
|
Having walked for nearly 11 km, with the temperature rising through the course of the day, I popped into the Longshaw Cafe to buy a Cornetto ice cream, which I hadn’t had for a very long time but, when I saw how small they are now and at such an inflated price, I carried on to the Fox House.
 |
The Fox House Inn
|
On my last visit to the Longshaw Estate and Padley Gorge, I discovered that the bus services on this route had been reduced for some strange reason, so I went to check the times before I went to buy a drink; however, a bus immediately arrived and so I returned to Sheffield, where I quenched my thirst with a couple of pints of lager shandy at the Old Queen’s Head instead.
 |
At the Queen's Head
|
No comments:
Post a Comment