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| An example of Neolithic Rock Art in Ecclesall Woods |
Following on from my investigation of the historic architecture and building stones in the Broomhill and Broomhall Conservation Areas, at Glossop Road, Rutland Park, Sheffield Botanical Gardens and the Broomhall Estate, my last excursion in November 2021 was to Ecclesall Woods.
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| The Archaeology Trail in Ecclesall Woods |
My friend Linda from the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, who in the last few years had been concentrating on her main interests in archaeology, had asked me if I could go with her and a colleague from her archaeology group to have a look around Wood 1, where there is an old ganister quarry, Q-pits, charcoal hearths and an example of Neolithic rock art.
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| The Archaeological Trail |
On my first visit to Ecclesall Woods, I had walked through Wood 1 and Wood 2 without being aware of its industrial archaeology, which I only became aware of after I stopped for a coffee and picked up a copy of the Ecclesall Woods Archaeological Trail at the Woodland Discovery Centre.
Having been picked up on the Abbeydale Road by Linda and her husband, we then made our way to Whirlowdale Road where, after finding a suitable parking place on the roadside, we set off to briefly explore the old ganister quarry that lies near to the road.
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| A sample of ganister broken with a 2½ pound hammer (21 mm coin) |
This would have been quite a shallow quarry and the only signs of the workings beneath the trees and thick undergrowth are the piles of waste rock and soil around its perimeter, with no exposures of the old quarry face being seen. During my geological excursions around Sheffield since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, ganister was the only rock type in a typical cyclothem that I had not being able to find in the field.
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| A sample of ganister broken with a 20 oz hammer (21 mm coin) |
Sifting through the overgrown waste, I found pieces of a very dense siliceous sandstone that I found very hard to break with my 20 oz Estwing hammer and which, as I was told by another friend in the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, had a distinct ring to it when struck. I managed to break a small piece, which revealed carbonaceous traces of tree roots, but the larger sample was so hard that I had to use a 2½ pound hammer to break it, after I got home.
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| Geological hammers |
Following various paths, we arrived at the rock art – a Scheduled Monument since its discovery in 1981 – which Historic England describes as: “The well preserved cup and ring carved rock 740m east of Park Head House is the first prehistoric carving to be discovered in the eastern foothills of the South Pennines. It is therefore a very rare, in situ, example of prehistoric rock art in this area. The carving itself is also unusual, with the raised oval boss being unique in its composition.”
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| The Neolithic rock art |
Linda and her group are interested to know if this large flat, but quite rounded boulder and other possible examples of rock art in Wood 1 are in situ remnants of erosion or have been transported to its current position by natural processes such as solifluction – as seen to great effect around Burbage Brook and the Longshaw Estate – with another possibility being that they were brought to their current positions by the makers.
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| The Neolithic rock art |
Unlike the Derbyshire gritstone edges, the Rivelin Valley and the Loxley Valley, the Sheaf Valley isn’t flanked by rocks that typically form vertical cliffs, where unsorted masses of large blocks and boulders, weathered rock and soil form extensive swathes of head on the lower slopes. Although the area around the rock art is wooded, I was informed that surveys of the area had shown that it was not obviously strewn with large blocks of sandstone.
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| A detail of the coarse grit (21mm coin) |
The boulder of coarse grained sandstone is covered in algae and moss and it isn’t that easy to see its texture and bedding characteristics, without clearing away all of the surrounding leaves and getting down on hands and knees. On its upper surface, it has a bed of coarse grained angular quartz fragments, which is common in the Chatsworth Grit; however, the geological memoir also mentions that the Crawshaw Sandstone and, in places, the Loxley Edge Rock also produces a coarse, massive stone like the Chatsworth Grit.
The geological map shows that the rock art sits on or very near to an unnamed Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation sandstone, but the Crawshaw Sandstone and the Loxley Edge Rock are not too distant, with the Chatsworth Grit further away to the west. The Rough Rock was also suggested as a possible source, as this can be very coarse, but much finer grained varieties are more common in the Sheffield area.
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| Another large boulder in Ecclesall Woods |
Linda then took us to see another larger rounded boulder of similar coarse grained sandstone, with distinct bedding visible on its sides but, standing back, I didn't notice any beds of very coarse and angular material. On its surface, there is a circular hole that is not easy to explain by natural processes, but it lacks the cups and grooves patterns previously seen.
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| Clearly visible bedding planes |
Continuing to the east edge of Wood 1, three streams converge and the surrounding land contains a profuse scattering of much smaller and more angular blocks of sandstone which, from a very limited inspection, contain sporadic flat and elongate nodules of clay ironstone that have sometimes been weathered out.
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| The landscape in Ecclesall Woods |
These moderately sized blocks are likely to have been brought down from the upper hillside to the west during times of flood along the well established drainage system, which flows east to the River Sheaf from the western moors.
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| A stream in Ecclesall Woods |
During this very brief visit to EcclesalI Woods, I learned a great deal about the industrial history of the area and, at one point on our exploration of Wood 1, we also encountered a heavily overgrown circular feature that is probably an old charcoal hearth. As to the provenance of the sandstone boulder on which the rock art is carved, we couldn't make any firm conclusions, but our initial thought was that the large boulders had probably been deliberately placed there.
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| A piece of charcoal (21 mm coin) |
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