The Shepherd Wheel to Hunter's Bar

 

An exposure of Greenmoor Rock beneath the roots of a tree

After a quick investigation of the geology along Porter Brook, just downstream of the Hangingwater Road bridge, I continued along the path to the Shepherd Wheel Workshop, to take a few photos of this very important example of Sheffield's industrial history for the British Listed Buildings website. 

 

The dam at the Shepherd Wheel

The two existing grinding hulls and the adjoining dam, goit and weir are dated c.1780 and, until c.1930, table and pocket knives were ground here. It is considered to be an outstanding example of the single process small scale units which characterised the Sheffield cutlery industry after the Industrial Revolution, but there has been a grinding hull on this site since c.1584. 

 

A general view of the Shepherd Wheel

I didn’t inspect the stonework here, but the source of the stone slates is the Rough Rock and for the walling stone it is quite likely to be the Loxley Edge Rock, which forms a substantial outcrop on the south side of the Porter Valley and was quarried at the nearby Greystones. 

 

Steps made from grindstones

 

Quickly making my way down to the end of Whiteley Woods and down through Endcliffe Park, I stopped very briefly to photograph the 'Mi Amigo' monument, which commemorates the crash of a B-17 Flying Fortress with the loss of 10 lives on 22nd February 1944. 

 

The 'Mi Amigo' monument in Endcliffe Park

Wherever the path passed near the Porter Brook, I had a look at the stream banks and although the streambed was covered with blocks of sandstone of various sizes, reflecting the underlying bedrock over which it has passed and eroded, I did not see any rock outcrops. 

 

Stepping stones on the Porter Brook in Endcliffe Park

Continuing along the path on the north side of the brook, I went to investigate the escarpment of Greenmoor Rock, where the soil had been eroded away to reveal small outcrops of flaggy sandstone that are visible beneath the roots of trees or are protruding from the ground. 

 

An outcrop of Greenmoor Rock in Endcliffe Park

The Greenmoor Rock varies considerably along its outcrop and I scrambled up the slope to obtain a sample for comparison with others that I had collected at Mushroom Lane, Graves Park and Parkwood Springs. It is a light brown/grey, very fine grained laminated sandstone, which quite unusually shows cross laminations at an angle to the bedding plane. 

 

A specimen of Greenmoor Rock from Endcliffe Park (21mm coin)

 

Arriving at Hunter's Bar, I went to have a close look at the former Yorkshire Bank building that I had passed many times on the bus, which appears to be an interwar alteration to a very late Victorian development where Junction Road and Ecclesall Road meet. 

 

The former Yorkshire Bank building at Hunter's Bar

 

This steel framed building is not listed, but its curved facade has cladding composed of three different types of granite, with a contrasting ‘black granite’ Art Deco style door surround and plinth and capital like details carved in relief at the top of the pilasters, is very pleasing to the eye. 

 

Granites and 'black granite'

 

Very near to the end of a productive walk, I photographed the last listed building on my itinerary, St. Augustine’s church on Brocco Bank, which was built in 1897 to a Gothic Revival design by JD Webster that uses what looks like Crawshaw Sandstone for the walling and Derbyshire gritstone for the quoins and dressings. 

 

St. Augustine's church

Walking clockwise around the church, I was very surprised to discover very stubby transepts that have been built with coursed and very irregular rubble masonry, which uses both a sandstone that is rusty brown in colour – as often seen during my investigation of historic buildings in Fulwood – and a thinly bedded rock faced sandstone. 

 

Masonry in the north transept

 

Having had a good look at various historic buildings that have used the Rough Rock, the Crawshaw Sandstone and the Loxley Edge Rock in their construction, this provided another stone identification puzzle at the end of a long walk, which I will have to further investigate at another time – along with the very unexpected exposures of Greenmoor Rock that are the remains of a quarry marked on the 1855 Ordnance Survey map.  

 

An old quarry exposure of the Greenmoor Rock