Geology & Architecture in Ridgeway II

 

Ridgeway House

Having walked down from Ridgeway Primary School and along Main Road to the edge of the escarpment that effectively marks the southern edge of the linear village of Ridgeway, I stopped to photograph the early C19 house Thornhill, which is built with light brown/yellowish walling stone and with a much darker yellow/brown massive sandstone used for the dressings. 

 

Thornhill

The mid C19 house adjoining it, No. 86 Main Road, is built entirely in this yellow/brown massive sandstone, which I suspect is the Grenoside Sandstone that was obtained from the quarry in Lumb Wood, located in the steep sided valley formed by Robin Brook immediately to the west of the village of Ridgeway. 

 

No. 86 Main Road

Opposite these two houses and fronting Main Road, the colour of stonework to the late C18 Ridgeway House was obscured in my photos by the Virginia Creeper that is growing on it but, looking at Google Street View, it appears to be the same sandstone that has been used for the walling of Thornhill House, but the dressings are of a pale coloured stone that is probably a medium grained gritstone from Derbyshire. 

 

Ridgeway House

When preparing the list of buildings to photograph for the British Listed Buildings website and looking at various maps, I didn’t look that closely at the geological map, except to note that I would be traversing alternating unnamed sandstones and mudstones/siltstones of the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation and I assumed that the stone used for the boundary walls that I passed when walking down Main Road were quarried locally from this. 

 

A dry stone wall on Main Road

 

After walking down the hill for about 200 metres, having passed various C20 houses, I came to the old Methodist Sunday School (1823), which is marked on the old maps as being at the northern edge of a village that is named Ridgeway Moor. 

 

The old Methodist Sunday School

Here, I discovered a tourist information panel that informed me that Ridgeway, which originally comprised the separate settlements and the hamlets of Sloadlane, Ridgeway and Ridgeway Moor, was a major centre for the production of scythes and sickles. 

The Lawns

I then went to search for the next building on my list to photograph, the early C19 house known as The Lawns, but I could only get glimpses of the indeterminate Coal Measures sandstone that has been used to build it. 

 

An extract from the geological memoir for Sheffield

Returning to Main Road, I then had another look at the information board and got talking to a local resident, who then proceeded to tell me about the local industry and, having mentioned that I was a geologist, went on to inform me that a borehole was sunk in Ridgeway - one of four sites in the area covered by the Sheffield geological map where a borehole looking for oil was drilled in 1919, as part of a nationwide programme of onshore oil exploration.

Another extract from the geological memoir for Sheffield

The geological memoir mentions that this test well was drilled down into the Carboniferous Limestone, which was found at a depth of 858 metres, above which was found a considerable thickness of shale – now known as the Bowland Shale Formation - which has recently been investigated for fracking. No oil was found, but the well did encounter hot salt water at a depth of 883 metres, which had a temperature of 49° C and flowed at a rate of 450,000 litres per day. 

 

A converted workshop on Main Road

Continuing with my investigation, I stopped briefly to look at a further example of dry stone walling and the converted buildings to the south of the Methodist Sunday School, including an old workshop, which are built with sandstone that varies from light brown to rusty brown, before taking a quick look at the exterior of the Church of St. John the Evangelist.

 

Another dry stone wall on Main Road