St. Mark's Church in Mosborough

The tower at St. Mark's church

Towards the end of my exploration of the geology, building stones and historic architecture of Halfway and Mosborough, I had a quick look at the stonework at Mosborough Methodist Church. I was very interested in the sandstones used in its construction, especially for the dressings and quoins, which are very different to the Parkgate Rock used for most buildings seen on my walk. 

 

A view of St. Mark's church from the end of Duke Street

Returning to High Street along Duke Street, I then caught a view of St. Mark’s church further down the hill and decided to go and take a few photos of it for my record of the building stones used in Sheffield, even though it is not a listed building. 

 

Parkgate Rock used in a boundary wall

 

Looking firstly at the rock faced walling stone, it is uniformly coloured without any obvious iron staining and contrasts with the sandstone used for the local boundary walls, which are probably further examples of locally quarried Parkgate Rock. 

 

A view along the south elevation

With the church being built in 1887, the transport available at the time would have enabled the stone to have been brought from anywhere in Sheffield or further afield from Derbyshire or West Yorkshire, which still remain the principal sources of the best quality Carboniferous sandstones. 

 

A dragon on the tower

I didn’t closely examine any of the stonework but, looking at my general record photographs, although various string courses, coping stones, cappings to the buttresses, window dressings and the dragons to the tower are made with massive sandstone, which is probably from one of these areas, the quoins look similar to the walling stone and are probably sourced from Sheffield.

 

The north elevation

 

Walking quickly around the church to take more photographs, although obscured by a moderate amount of dirt, the uniformity of the colour was evident throughout. Having travelled extensively around Sheffield, I had by now encountered nearly all of the named sandstones in the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation, which have all produced building stone. 

 

A general view

Having looked at hundreds of historic buildings, the only stone that has consistently uniform characteristics of colour and texture is the Crawshaw Sandstone from Bole Hill at Crookes/Walkley Bank which, according to the Victorian Society book Building Schools for Sheffield has been used to build the Greystones, Hammerton Street and Ranmoor schools. 

 

The west elevation

 

Using these as a point of reference, I consider that nearly all of the Sheffield Board Schools that I have visited are also built out of the Crawshaw Sandstone and, although I have no supporting documentary evidence, I have seen various churches and other buildings that I think are probably built with the same sandstone. 

 

A general view

 

Although my casual visit did further highlight the variety of sandstones to be found in the historic buildings of Mosborough, a more detailed inspection of the stonework at St. Mark’s church would be needed before any conclusions can be made about the provenance of its stone. I ended my brief visit by taking advantage of the church being opened by the church warden, to look at its interior, but it is plastered and there is no stonework to see.

 

A view along the nave