Mosborough Methodist Church

 

Mosborough Methodist Church

The vast majority of more than 100 mediaeval churches that I have visited, during the last 7 years, have been built in phases over the centuries, with the Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Early English, Decorated Gothic and Perpendicular Gothic styles having their own particular characteristics – including the patterns of masonry used for the walling and dressings. 

 

A detail of the front elevation

 

Although I have often photographed churches built in the post-mediaeval period for the British Listed Buildings website, those built after the development of the canals and railways have not usually been altered substantially and don’t appeal to my interests in standing buildings archaeology and, for the dressings at least, the stone has often been brought from some distance – with the principal sources of the best quality sandstones being Derbyshire and West Yorkshire. 

 

A detail of a gatepier

I tend not to spent much time looking closely at the stonework of many of these because, unlike the mediaeval churches, they very often don't reflect the local geology; however, while investigating the building stones and listed buildings around Mosborough, which are mostly built from the local Parkgate Rock, Mosborough Methodist Church (1888) by James Kerridge caught my eye.

 

The geometrical window

The walling lacks the strong orange/brown colouration of the Parkgate Rock, due to the high iron content of this formation and its associated strata and is generally uniformly light brown in colour, although it does have iron staining that is usual in the Coal Measures sandstones. It has planar bedding, with the silty beds being highlighted by differential weathering and sometimes deep scouring, which suggests that the stone could be from a local quarry in the Silkstone Rock.

Walling stone

The massive sandstone dressings to the round geometrical window and the two lancets on the front elevation are pink/orange in colour and remind me of the sandstone used by the architects Holmes and Watson at Sheffield Board Schools in Pomona Street, Western Road and Ranmoor, which is ‘Matlock stone’ from the Ashover Grit. 

 

A detail of the datestone

Although I couldn’t see them from close up, my photos show that all the dressings are in reasonably good condition and, judging by their colour, I assumed that the quoins to the tower like square flanking buttresses are built in the same sandstone. 

A detail of a buttress

I was very surprised to discover that these are not made of a massive sandstone, which would be expected when the local sandstone is not of particularly good quality, but are soft grey silty sandstone, which has developed an orange patina on its weathered surface and has delaminated to reveal the body of the stone. 

 

A detail of the walling and quoins

I had encountered similar silty grey sandstones used for boundary walls and houses in Handsworth and for some of the walling of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. These are typical of the Pennine Coal Measures Group, marked in shades of grey on the geological map, which comprise grey mudstone, siltstone, pale grey sandstone and ironstone concretions. 

 

Cross-laminated siltstone

Compared to the walling stone, which has horizontal planar beds, the siltstone has well developed small scale cross-laminations, which are particularly evident where the rock faced dressed surface of the stone has weathered and fallen off. 

 

The Mosborough Methodist Church Hall

Moving along to Cadman Street, I encountered what I first thought was another Methodist Church but soon discovered that it is actually the Mosborough Methodist Church Hall, which is built with the same sandstones and presumably designed by the same architect, but the only indirect reference to it that I could find is a photo, with its caption dating it to 1900.

 

Quoins at the Mosborough Methodist Church Hall