 |
| Grotesques at the Anglican chapel |
Arriving at Psalter Lane, having spent only an hour exploring Nether Edge since alighting from the No. 56 bus at the top of Montgomery Road, I took a few photos of the Grade II Listed boundary walls and gate posts at Psalter Lane Methodist Church, before making my way down to Sharrow Vale Road to look at various listed buildings – including the stone built Westbrook Snuff Mill.
 |
| A Google Map view of Sheffield General Cemetery |
Having finished photographing all of the buildings for the British Listed Buildings website on this walk, I finished my day in Sheffield by going to have a look at Sheffield General Cemetery, which was opened in 1836 and, after the last burial in 1978 and subsequent clearance of very many headstones from the east end, is now preserved as a green space.
 |
| The General Cemetery Geological Trail |
Over the years, I had passed though it a couple of times and was aware that a geologist colleague, Peter Kennett, produced a geological trail for the cemetery over 20 years ago and continues to lead walks, to look at the various monuments and the Stone Spiral, which was installed in 2004 as part of a Memorial Garden during a major refurbishment.
 |
| Montague House |
Walking down Cemetery Road, I firstly came across the Classical style Montague House (c1836) which, according to the Historic England listing, was probably by Samuel Worth and originally used as the cemetery office. It is set back from the road and I didn’t go and investigate the stonework, but its massive blocks look like they could be the coarse grained Chatsworth Grit, which has been used for other listed buildings in the cemetery and for the coping stones to the cemetery boundary wall.
 |
| The doorway to Montague House |
Looking at the boundary wall more closely, the sandstone here various from grey to pale orange, with iron staining, Liesegang rings and weathered concentrations of iron oxides/hydroxides on the joint faces being prominent. The latter is quite common in the Greenmoor Rock, but this sandstone is quite soft and susceptible to weathering and it reminds me more of the stone that I had seen in the boundary wall to Kenwood House earlier on my walk.
 |
| The boundary wall to Sheffield General Cemetery |
I followed the boundary wall further down Cemetery Road, which is set on the edge of an escarpment of an unnamed Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) sandstone that dips 3 degrees to the north-east, before arriving at the Egyptian Gate (1836).
This Grade II* Listed structure, again probably by Samuel Worth, is designed in an Egyptian Revival style and it has a winged sun motif known as the Heru Behutet on the cornice. I didn’t stop to examine the stone used here but, from my photos, I can see that the weathered stone beneath the layer of dirt looks like coarse grained Chatsworth Grit.
 |
| The Egyptian Gate |
Entering the cemetery, I was immediately drawn to the large monument to Henry Adams (d1908) and his wife Rebecca (d1904), which is made of even grained light grey and dark red granites, which may be British, but on this occasion I didn’t examine them closely.
 |
| The Henry Adams memorial |
When working in the building restoration industry in London, I made a point of trying to get to know the principal granites used in the Victorian Edwardian buildings and monuments - using the geological walks by Eric Robinson – but since I no longer have my reference collection of building stones, upon which the Triton Stone Library was based, these are not easy to identify.
 |
| The Henry Adams memorial |
The next point of interest was the Anglican chapel (1848) by the renowned Sheffield architect William Flockton who established a series of firms that designed many of Sheffield’s significant buildings, some of which I had encountered on Glossop Road, and is buried in the cemetery.
 |
| Views of the Anglican chapel |
I only had a very quick wander around its exterior to take a few general record photos, without poring over its fine details, but I did notice the great contrast in colour and texture between the very coarse and gritty Chatsworth Grit used for the dressings and the much finer grey/orange walling stone, which is probably from the PLCMF.
 |
| A headstop on the Anglican chapel |
No comments:
Post a Comment