Historic Architecture in Sheffield - Part 1

 

A grotesque by Frank Tory on Parade Chambers

During 2021, from February to October, most of my days out in Sheffield were based around my project to visit all of the Sheffield Board Schools, but I also took with me a list of various buildings that did not yet have a photograph on the British Listed Buildings website. 

 

The distribution of the Sheffield Board Schools

After completing this project, I spent the end of the year visiting parts of Sheffield that I had never explored before, particularly the Conservation Areas in Broomhill, Broomhall and Nether Edge; however, most of the listed buildings in the City Centre Conservation Area have already been photographed and, although I occasionally capture a detail when well lit, I have never systematically recorded its buildings.

 

The Sheffield City Centre Conservation Area

 

Although I had made a provisional list of various places that I wanted to visit in 2022, my movements were still dictated by the winter weather; however, despite my trips to Sheffield being limited to essential shopping or perhaps to the creative writing sessions that I attend at Sheffield Central Library, I carried my Canon Powershot G7 Mark II camera with me at all times and would make the most of any good weather, while fitting in with times of the buses back to Treeton. 

 

The Old Town Hall on Waingate

 

More than a week after I had a walk around Bray Plantation and Walkworth Wood, I took advantage of a bright sunny day to go into Sheffield and find the Old Police Station on Castle Green and one of the old brick built little mesters workshops on Arundel Street, but firstly I had a quick look at the stonework at the Old Town Hall (1808) by Watson of Wakefield. 

 

Details of the Old Town Hall

 

The original building is made of very coarse grained, cross-bedded sandstone that has the characteristics of the Chatsworth Grit but the fountain, added in 1897, is made with finer grained sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group, which is either from Derbyshire or West Yorkshire. 

 

The east elevation of the Old Police Station

 

I had a quick look at the east elevation of the Old Police Station, which is built with sandstone ashlar but, being more concerned with getting a decent photo in the restricted space available on Castle Green, I didn't take much notice of the stone used here. 

 

The principal elevation of 1-9 York Street

 

Making my way up High Street, my next stop was the Grade II Listed 1-9 York Street (1895) by Andrew Watson of the practice Holmes and Watson, who later designed five board schools – including the Arts and Crafts style Western Road, Ranmoor and Carterknowle schools. 

 

The original entrance to the bank

It was commissioned for the London and Midland Bank and, like very many other bank buildings of this period, it has made use of the best materials of the time, with the ashlar from Huddersfield and the variety of Norwegian larvikite, Emerald Pearl, being used for the door surround and plinth and a dark red Swedish granite for the columns.

 

A detail of the former London and Midland Bank

 

Red granites, which were imported from Sweden and Finland at this time, are much darker than Scottish granites such as the varieties from Peterhead and the Ross of Mull, but without reference collections to refer to or petrographic analysis, it is very difficult to positively identify them. 

 

A detail of the column base at the former London and Midland Bank

Looking closely at a detailed photo of one of the column bases, the quartz crystals seem to have a distinct blueish colour, which struck me as being very unusual. According to the Building Stones of Cardiff, which I had purchased more than 25 years ago, this is apparently a characteristic of the Precambrian Virgo granite. 

 

Sculpture by Frank Tory at the former London and Midland Bank

 

I had passed this many times but, although I had noticed these granites, I didn’t look at the ornate architectural sculpture above the main doorway, which has three escutcheons but is barely mentioned in the Historic England description. It is the work of the renowned sculptor Frank Tory, who produced top quality work in both stone and wood for many of Sheffield’s finest buildings. 

 

Stone carving on Parade Chambers

 

His figurative work can be seen to great effect on the adjoining Parade Chambers (1884), by the Sheffield architects M.E Hadfield and Son, one of a series of practices that was founded in 1838 by Matthew Ellison Hadfield and is still operating under the name of Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson. 

 

Sculptural details on Parade Chambers

Having taken advantage of the bright sunshine, which was perfectly illuminating the array of wonderful grotesques, I made my way down to Arundel Street, where the old Challenge Works has a good example of incised lettering that announces its business.

 

The former Challenge Works

Bray Plantation and Walkworth Wood

 

A bell pit in Bray Plantation

 

Shortly after my last outing of 2021, to investigate the geology of the Waverley Estate in Rotherham, I posted a few photographs online and immediately received various comments about the educational value of the interesting rock specimens and fossils that I had found. 

 

Wave Magazine

Thinking about this a little bit more, I contacted Wave Magazine and suggested that the residents of the Waverley Estate, and the new school, might appreciate a short article on the subject. Having had such a busy time in 2020, which required 280 Language of Stone Blog posts, with 150,000 words and a few thousand photographs – including surveys of all the remaining Sheffield Board Schools - the idea is running 14 months late, but this fitting in well with my current work schedule. 

 

An Ordnance Survey map of the area around Grange Park

 

For my first day out in 2022, having got the Christmas and New Year festivities out of the way, I asked my next door neighbour Dan, who had accompanied me on trips to Treeton Wood and Rawmarsh, if he wanted to have a look at the area around Grange Park in Kimberworth. 

 

A geological map with hatching showing areas of coal mines and tips

The Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) strata above the Penistone Flags contain several coal and ironstone seams, which have been exploited wherever they occur in South Yorkshire, with the latter being mined by the monks of Kirkstead Abbey back in the C12. 

 

The 1949 Ordnance Survey map of Kimberworth

In early spring 2021, I had a good walk around this part of Rotherham, where there is still evidence of these industries and the quarrying of sandstone – although the construction of the M1 motorway and C20 landscaping has obliterated most of the features that are marked on the Ordnance Survey maps from 1854 to 1949. 

 

Bell pits shown on the LIDAR map

On this occasion, I was interested in the various bell pits that are shown on the LIDAR map alongside the Upper Wortley Road, which tantalisingly omits the land owned by the Wentworth-Fitzwilliam Estate. The regular layout of the bell pits here is very similar to the Scheduled Monument at Hood Hill, which Historic England describe as deep shaft workings that were a characteristic of coal mining from the 18th century onwards. 

 

Views of bell pits in Bray Plantation

 

Walking through Bray Plantation, we wandered off the public footpath a couple of times to look at a few bell pits, before continuing up Upper Wortley Road to see Keppel’s Column, which was shrouded in scaffold at the time. 

 

Keppel's Column

Retracing our steps back to the Grange Golf Club, we continued down to the clubhouse across the underlying Silkstone Rock but, having already briefly explored this part of Grange Park and not seen much of great interest, I led us down to Walkworth Wood.

 

A view of Keppel's Column from Walkworth Wood

The wood sits on the lower slopes beneath an escarpment of the Silkstone Rock, which was exposed at the edge of the field. The area does not appear to have been quarried, but the topsoil has been removed to reveal the bedding plane of flaggy sandstone. 

 

An exposure of Silkstone Rock

The sample that I took, without resorting to my Estwing hammer, is quite yellow in colour, fine to medium grained, well bedded and contains interstitial degraded iron bearing minerals, but no mica. It was the first time that I had seen an outcrop of Silkstone Rock in Rotherham, but it looks quite different to the muddy grey specimen that I collected from the Clay Wood quarry in Sheffield.

 

A specimen of Silkstone Rock (21mm diameter coin)

Continuing along the path at the foot of the escarpment, we kept our eyes open for signs of quarrying, but this seems to be restricted to Barber Wood, where the unnamed PLCMF sandstone above the Penistone Flags was used to build Thundercliffe Grange. 

 

The escarpment of Silkstone Rock in Walkworth Wood

We made our way north along the path into an area that was formerly part of the site of Grange A Colliery (1855-1962), which was owned by Newton Chambers and Co., one of Britain’s biggest industrial companies. Here, I explored a pile of black shale, with which ironstone is usually associated, but this is probably recent waste from the mine rather than an old bell pit. 

 

Black shale waste at the former Grange A Colliery site

Rummaging around the tip, I didn’t see any signs of ironstone as I had at the line of old bell pits at Kimberworth, but obtained a specimen of a rock that I did not yet have in my collection. Its grains aren’t visible with a hand lens and there is no sign of any fossils or finely disseminated pyrite.

 

A specimen of black shale (21mm diameter coin)

 

Geology on the Waverley Estate

 

A detail of a coarse pebbly gritstone boulder on the roadside

When I moved to Treeton in 1997, the view from St. Helen’s church to St. Mary’s church in Handsworth, set on higher ground to the west, was obscured by a vast pile of waste from the Orgreave opencast coal mine, which had replaced the Orgreave Colliery and Coking Works. 

 

The British Geological Survey map showing coal mining sites and tips

By 2010, the site had been regenerated and work was starting on the laying of the infrastructure for the planned Waverley Estate, so I decided to have walk around the area, starting at the site of the diverted River Rother, where the low water level revealed an exposure of shale and possibly the Haughton Marine Band. 

 

A river bank exposure of shale on the River Rother

Perhaps because it was intended to develop the site with very high density housing, no topsoil seems to have been used for the restoration which, although not good for growing plants, reveals a variety of Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation (PMCMF) rocks – including fine sandstone, siltstone, mudstone and black shale – that have been weathered to varying degrees. 

 

Various weathered rocks

I had just started to use the black and white and red filter settings on my Canon EOS 400D camera and, with the typical April showers weather producing some spectacular skies, I went out a couple of days later to the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), where I discovered several rough blocks of PMCMF rock forming the boundary of the TWI Technology Centre on Wallis Way. 

 

Various weathered boulders

Although I was no longer involved with any geological organisations that would appreciate the potential educational value of these various rocks, which demonstrate how sediments of different grain size and chemistry resist weathering processes – mirrored by the topography of the region – this made quite an impression on me. 

 

Boulders of PMCMF rocks on Wallis Way

On the very few occasions that I have since visited the Waverley Estate and the AMP, I have noticed various other large blocks of grey siltstone that exhibit various sedimentary structures, iron mineralisation and trace fossils, but I didn’t consider visiting it again until I read an article on the Sheffield Area Geology Trust (SAGT) website about various well preserved Carboniferous plant fossils that had been found in the red shale used for the footpaths on the estate.

 

An Article on the SAGT website

The day after my exploration of Nether Edge and the Sheffield General Cemetery, I took advantage of a sunny December afternoon to go and take a look at the hard baked red shale, which is a product of the spontaneous combustion of fine coal dust associated with the oxidation of pyrite in colliery tips – as has occurred in the Treeton Colliery tip to the east of my house. 

 

Various rocks collected from the Waverley Estate

Having found a few pieces of fossiliferous shale amongst the handful of rocks that I collected using my Estwing hammer, I later talked with the finder of the plant fossils, who informed me that he had rummaged through piles of shale used for paths on the Waverley Estate several years ago and kindly gave some of them to me. 

 

Various plant fossils from the Waverley Estate

Whilst my search for fossils wasn’t that productive, I was interested to see that the foundations for the new back to back housing blocks were being dug into black shale and, in one place, I could see a very large piece of discarded coal beyond the heras fencing, which could easily grace the geology display in any of the museums that I know in South Yorkshire. 

 

Black shale exposed by foundation works

A couple of men were working on site within a short distance of this and, if I was still involved with these museums – who now just seem to expect their work to be done by volunteers – I would have given them a shout and slipped them a tenner for their trouble, to bring the lump of coal to me, with a very fair claim later made for ‘expenses’. 

 

Glacial erratics used for landscaping

The site is being rapidly developed, with much of the waste rock now being broken down by frost action, but I came across a children’s play area where several large boulders, which I presume to be glacial erratics, have been used for the landscaping. 

 

Views of a migmatite boulder

 

From a distance, I initially thought that they are granite but, when getting closer, I could see that that the rock has a distinct green tinge, with one of them containing quite large fragments of partially melted dark green metamorphosed rock. 

 

A detail of a migmatite boulder

 

I didn’t have my hand lens with me to closely examine the rocks, but they don’t look like a typical granite with well defined crystals or phenocrysts, with the dark green fragments forming xenoliths. I am not very familiar with high grade metamorphic rocks and I couldn't make a guess about its provenance, but it is probably a basic migmatite. 

 

A block of siltstone

 

Scattered around the estate, there are also a few blocks of grey siltstone, which display various sedimentary structure, including ripple marks and beds containing both carbonaceous material and concentrations of iron oxides/hydroxides – a characteristic of the softer beds in the PMCMF that is not generally seen in natural exposures, such as stream banks. 

 

A detail of a block of siltstone

 

Having spent less than 45 minutes wandering around the estate, I had already encountered several interesting geological specimens that, together with those that I had previously seen at the AMP, would make an interesting half day field trip. I finished my brief exploration of the Waverley Estate at Highfield Lane, where lumps of a very coarse pebbly gritstone from the Millstone Grit Group, laid out on the roadside, were glowing in the late afternoon sunshine.

A lump of gritstone on the roadside at Highfield Lane

The Sheffield General Cemetery - Part 2

 

A detail of the block of dolomitic limestone in the Stone Spiral

Continuing my investigation of Sheffield General Cemetery, I followed the path down from the Anglican chapel to the junction of Sandford’s Walk, where I unexpectedly came across the monument to the Sheffield industrialist and philanthropist, Mark Firth.

 

A map from the Sheffield General Cemetery Trust website

Having discovered his role in the establishment of the Sheffield Board Schools and being specifically asked to include his house, Oakbrook, in a talk to the Ranmoor Society in September 2022, I was interested to find this Grade II Listed monument.

 

The monument to Mark Firth

 

As with the Henry Adams monument near the Anglican chapel and the nearby Grade II Listed memorial to James Nicholson, another steel magnate who lived at Moordale in Ranmoor, on this occasion I didn’t have a good look at the sandstone and granite from which it is made.

 

The memorial to James Nicholson

 

Continuing to the William Parker monument (1837), which was erected by the merchants and manufacturers of Sheffield, I just took a few photos from a distance that show that it is made with a pale coloured stone. The Historic England description refers to it as being constructed with white marble but, according to the General Cemetery Geological Trail, it is Permian dolomitic limestone.

 

The William Parker memorial

In Rotherham and Doncaster, where the Cadeby Formation outcrops and is used extensively as a building stone, I have encountered headstones made of this limestone but I can’t recall seeing a monument like this. It is designed in the style of a small circular Greek temple, known as a tholos, with fluted columns, Corinthian capitals and an inscribed cornice.

 

A detail of fluted columns and Corinthian capitals

 

I then retraced my steps to the Nonconformist Chapel (c1836), where the entrance front has a tetrastyle Greek Doric portico with a full entablature and pediment. Although ostensibly designed in a Classical style, Samuel Worth also included an Egyptian Revival door surround with a dove carved in relief above it.

 

The Nonconformist Chapel

 

The large ashlar blocks and the drums to the columns are made of very course grained Chatsworth Grit - as seen in the Egyptian Gate (1836), the coping stones on the Cemetery Road boundary wall and probably Montague House - which here contains significant quantities of small pebbles.

 

The doorway to the Nonconformist Chapel

 

My next stop was the memorial to George Bennet (c1850), a founder of the Sheffield Sunday School Movement, where my main interest was the severely weathered white marble relief sculpture, which is set in a sandstone ashlar pedestal. 

The George Bennet monument

 

Following the path down to the bottom of the escarpment, I passed by the dilapidated two tiered catacombs, which is also a Grade II Listed structure designed by Samuel Worth, and carried on until I reached the Stone Spiral, created in 2004 as part of the memorial garden and containing large blocks of various sandstones, limestones, granites and Welsh slate.

 

The catacombs

I first saw this interesting educational resource a few years after it had been laid out, when the different colours and textures could be clearly distinguished but, after 18 years, general weathering, the city atmosphere and algae have all taken their toll on the appearance of the various stones that can be found here.

 

The Stone Spiral

 

At the time, having often seen stone cleaners at work with high pressure washers, when working in the building restoration industry in London, I thought that these could all be cleaned back to something like their original condition, provided that a source of water was available, at relatively little cost – making them once again fit for purpose rather than looking like a random pile of rocks.

 

Dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation

 

Coming to the end of the path, I was interested to see three more blocks of igneous rock: a red granite from Sweden, a monzonite known as larvikite from Norway and Rubislaw granite from Aberdeen in Scotland, which can be found in Victorian and Edwardian buildings and monuments throughout the United Kingdom.

 

Various igneous rocks adjacent to the gatehouse

I finished my brief exploration of Sheffield General Cemetery at the gatehouse, with its flanking lodges (1836), designed by Samuel Worth in the Greek Revival style and built on a wide bridge that straddles the Porter Brook.

 

Views of the gatehouse

 

The gathouse is again built with the very coarse grained Chatsworth Grit from the Millstone Grit Group, which commonly contains sub-rounded fingernail sized pebbles, but here it contains much larger angular fragments that I had never seen before in this rock formation.

 

A large angular fragment in the masonry of the gatehouse

Leaving the cemetery, I briefly followed the intriguingly named Frog Walk to photograph the crossing of the gatehouse over the Porter Brook, where I noticed the outcrop of an unnamed flaggy Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) sandstone – finishing yet another fascinating investigation of the geology, building stones, architecture and history of Sheffield.

 

An outcrop of sandstone in the bank of the Porter Brook