Locke Park in Barnsley

 

Locke Park Tower

During my brief walk around Kingstone and Ouslethwaite, the main reason for visiting this part of Barnsley was to see Locke Park, a popular public space that occupies a ridge of Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation (PMCMF) rocks, which is less than 1 km from the town centre. 

 

The topography around Locke Park

I have visited Barnsley numerous times over the years, mainly to see exhibitions at the Cooper Gallery and The Civic, or as a starting place from which to explore the mediaeval churches and historic architecture in some of the surrounding villages. Until quite recently, I had never heard of Locke Park – a gift to the town by Phoebe, the widow of the great railway engineer, Joseph Locke. 

 

A lion

 

Entering by the gates on Park Road I was immediately attracted to a stone lion that is placed on a plinth near to the entrance to Serpentine Walk. Presumably made of Portland stone, these were brought from Cawthorne in 2019 to replace others that had been removed in the 1970’s. 

 

The old fountain in Serpentine Walk

The focal point of the Serpentine Walk, through a landscaped old quarry in the Kent’s Rock, is a large stone ornamental fountain (1877), which has either been painted or covered in a very thick coat of limewash, which detracts from its appearance.

 

An inscribed plaque made of Shap granite

The fountain is now filled with soil and used as a planter and the stone from which it has been built deserves further investigation; furthermore, a particularly interesting feature here is the set of four inscribed plaques on its base, which are made of Shap granite.

 

A glacial erratic and another stone lion

 

At the southern end of the Serpentine Walk is another stone lion, along with another example of Shap granite in the form of a glacial erratic, which was found in Royston and eventually brought to the park by the Barnsley Naturalist Society; however, on this occasion, I did not see any information about this or the ABC steps and was therefore completely unaware of them. 

 

Columns with Ionic capitals

 

Continuing my exploration of the park, I was interested to see the four Ionic columns that have been located on the higher ground above the landscaped quarry. These came from the old bank and post office at the corner of Church Street and Royal Street, which was demolished to make way for a new building. 

 

Locke Park Tower

The centrepiece of the park, set on its highest point, is the Grade II* Listed Locke Park Tower (1877) by Richard Phené Spiers - a London architect that I had never heard of before – which was paid for by Sarah McCreery, the sister of Phoebe Locke. 

 

A detail of Locke Park Tower

Although surrounded by a high hedge, with a locked gate to prevent me from getting close to the tower, I could clearly see from a distance that the building stones used in its construction are not locally quarried PMCMF sandstones. 

 

A detail of Locke Park Tower

The structure is mainly built with Jurassic Ancaster limestone from Lincolnshire, with its very distinctive ripple marks, which has decayed badly and has been restored in several places. Permian Red Mansfield stone, a sandy variety of the Cadeby Formation, has been used for the band courses and terracotta for the Corinthian capitals and the richly decorated frieze below the viewing platform. 

 

A detail of Locke Park Tower

 

After photographing the Grade II Listed bandstand for the British Listed Buildings website, I made my way back towards the Park Road entrance and briefly stopped to photograph the statue of Joseph Locke by Baron Carlo Marochetti and its enclosure, which was commissioned by the Institute of Civil Engineers and unveiled in 1866. 

 

The statue of Joseph Locke

The bronze statue sits on a plinth of pink Peterhead granite from Aberdeenshire, with Historic England describing it as being "surrounded by a square enclosure with a Portland stone balustrade with turned balusters and square, panelled corner piers with ornamental square capitals".

 

A blue plaque on the Peterhead granite plinth

 

I finished my brief exploration of Locke Park by quickly looking around the area near to the pavilion café, where an ornamental drinking fountain - moved to the park in 1866 from Peel Square in Barnsley - provides another interesting detail in the park, like those that could once be seen at Boston Park in Rotherham.

 

The drinking fountain

 

Next to the children’s playground, a large plesiosaur like creature with a dragon's head, is made of nine separate carved segments. It is apparently called Silurian Stone, but I have yet to find out anything about this fine modern addition to a wonderful Victorian park.

 

The Silurian Stone

 

Kingstone and Ouslethwaite in Barnsley

 

Sandstone in a boundary wall

Following on from my brief exploration of the Silkstone Rock around City Road and Park Hill, in Sheffield, my next day out was to Locke Park, which is set in the Kingstone area of Barnsley to the south of the town centre. 

 

Listed buildings in Kingstone and Ouslethwaite

 

As usual, I had prepared a list of buildings from the British Listed Buildings website that did not yet have a photograph and, after taking the train from Sheffield to Barnsley, I caught the No. 44 bus to Park Road, where I commenced my walk at the Grade II Listed Church of St. Edward (1902), by Goodwin S Packer of Southport. 

 

The Church of St. Edward

I only had a quick look at the fabric of the church around the south door, where the walling is a planar bedded, light brown medium grained sandstone, which I assume has been quarried from one of the local Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation (PMCMF) sandstones. 

 

Planar bedded walling stone

 

The dressings are made with a massive medium to coarse grained sandstone, which is quite yellow in places. It lacks the very distinctive cross-bedding of the Woolley Edge Rock, which was the principal sandstone formation quarried for building stone in the Barnsley area, with it most likely coming from West Yorkshire. 

 

Details of the south door

 

I then headed through Locke Park, which I will describe later, to find the next building on my list, Beech Grove, which was built as a pair of large semi-detached houses in 1873, with an early example of shuttered concrete walls and a flat concrete roof. 

 

Beech Grove

 

Arriving at Genn Lane, I headed west towards Ouslethwaite, stopping to look at the views across the valley occupied by the River Dove and Worsborough Mill Country Park, where the scarp and vale topography formed in the PMCMF strata can be seen on the skyline. 

 

Scarp and vale topography in PMCMF strata

My first stop in the hamlet of Ouslethwaite was at Genn House (c1700), a sandstone built farmhouse with a stone tile roof where Dr. William Elmhirst, an eminent surgeon and apothecary, lived and ran his practice. 

 

Genn House

The late C18 Ouslethwaite Hall was built for the Elmhirst Estate and is closely associated with Genn House, with the family in the area going back to c1320. The boundary wall is built with a sandstone that is in places light brown, but is sometimes yellowish and cross-bedded.

 

Views of Ouslethwaite Hall

Ouslethwaite Hall is set back from the road and partially obscured with hedges, with some dirt hiding the colour of the sandstone. On the 1855 Ordnance Survey map, a substantial old quarry in the Kent’s Rock may indicate a possible source, but several quarries did operate on the Woolley Edge Rock further to the east. 

 

The large L shaped complex of farm buildings

Next to Ouslethwaite Hall is a very large L shaped complex of late C18 to early C19 farm buildings, which is built out of a yellowish sandstone similar in colour to that used for the boundary wall to Ouslethwaite Hall, but I could not get near enough to take a good look. 

 

Specimens of sandstone from boundary walls

 

On my short walk to Ouslethwaite and back to Locke Park, I didn’t see any rock outcrops but, at two places on Genn Lane, the boundary walls had been damaged and I obtained pieces of sandstone - one of which is grey and fine grained and the other is orange and medium grained. 

 

A distant view of Locke Park Tower

 

When walking along Genn Lane, I could see Locke Park Tower on a ridge of relatively high ground that I thought must be the edge of an escarpment formed by one of the local sandstones but, when looking at the geological map, this topographic feature very surprisingly has no bearing to the strike of the strata here. 

The geology around Kingstone and Ouslethwaite

Making my way through Locke Park, I found a bus stop on Park Road, where I could not help but notice the wide variety of colours and textures seen in the adjacent boundary wall – with the ironstone rich bands in the sandstone standing out proud. 

 

Deatails of a boundary wall on Park Road

 

A Walk From City Road to Park Hill

 

Painted Silkstone Rock walling on Stafford Street

Leaving City Road Cemetery in Sheffield, having photographed the crematorium and chapels and had a good look at various Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones and memorials, I photographed the Crosland Hill sandstone sculptures by Thomas Kenrick and Ben Leach and continued down City Road.

 

A sculpture by Thomas Kenrick and Ben Leach

I stopped very briefly at the Church of St. Aidan and St. Luke, to photograph its boundary wall for the British Listed Buildings website, which looks like it is built out of sandstone that is quite similar to that used for many houses and other older buildings down City Road. 

 

The boundary wall and piers at the Church of St. Aidan and St. Luke

Moving on down to the Manor Lodge Board School, I had another good look at the general walking stone, which is by now the very familiar uniformly buff coloured Crawshaw Sandstone, with its distinctive planar bedding.

 

Crawshaw Sandstone at Manor Lodge Board School

On this occasion, I was more interested in the dressings used, particularly the window surrounds and sill, which have a grey body and a bright orange patina that has weathered away in several places. I had seen something very similar at Mosborough Methodist Church and is church hall, which at the time I thought might be from an unnamed sandstone in the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation. 

 

A detail of a window at Manor Lodge Board School

At Mosborough, the major rock formation is the Parkgate Rock, with the Silkstone Rock outcrop being subordinate, and this pattern is seen again along City Road, with the Parkgate Rock forming the escarpment at Skye Edge and the Silkstone Rock forming the escarpment at Park Hill. 

 

The geology around City Road in Sheffield

 

One of the Clay Wood quarries at the edge of the Cholera Monument grounds, which I had briefly explored a year earlier, supplied Silkstone Rock that has been described in Hunt's Mineral Statistics as bluestone and produced ashlar and kerbs, with the former being used for the Shrewsbury Almshouses (1825). I have therefore since thought that the dressings at both Manor Board School and Mosborough Methodist Church could be from this formation. 

 

Dinner from the Reggae Kitchen

Stopping for a takeaway lunch from the Reggae Kitchen, which I highly recommend, I carried on down towards Park Hill via Glencoe Road and then turned down Talbot Place to photograph the lodges to the Shrewsbury Almshouses.

 

The north lodge is refaced with Stoke Hall stone

 

As described on the Sheffield Area Geology trust (SAGT) website, the south front of the almshouses have been refaced in Stoke Hall stone from Grindleford in Derbyshire, which has been used for the Town Hall, the Peace Gardens and in various historic buildings around Sheffield. 

 

The south lodge

 

The north lodge has also been fully refaced, but the south lodge does not appear to have been restored. I didn’t look at either of these buildings closely, but the differences in the physical characteristics of these sandstones are quite obvious. 

 

Walling at the Shrewsbury Almshouses chapel

 

I took a few quick snaps of the walling at the north end of the chapel, where grey/orange colour variation can be seen yet again in sandstone that has not weathered very well. Being aware that I was on private property, I just took another few photos of the gables on the south lodge and then went to look at some of the other houses in the area. 

 

A gable on the south lodge

 

Compared to the Parkgate Rock, the Silkstone Rock at the almshouses and lodges has quite a distinctive muddy grey/brown colour that is clearly recognisable in other buildings. The terraced houses on Talbot Place are presumably also built with stone from the Clay Wood quarry, but the stonework of these seems to be in better condition. 

 

Terraced houses on Talbot Place

 

Retracing my steps and heading down Stafford Street, I discovered that many of the terraced houses built in the same sandstone have been painted, in an effort to prevent the deterioration of the stone, but this treatment only accelerates the decay of the sandstone beneath it, which again is muddy grey/brown. 

 

Painted Silkstone Rock on Stafford Street

Finally, I made my way down to Talbot Street and then to Shrewsbury Road, where I photographed the Grade II Listed No. 19 (c1850), which was once a sweet factory. It is again built in the local Silkstone Rock, with a much coarser sandstone – possibly the Loxley Edge Rock – used for the large road setts.

Views of No. 19 Shrewsbury Road and road setts

War Graves in City Road Cemetery

 

The H.M. Forces Memorial at City Road Cemetery

As a photographer, when exploring St. Martin’s church in Firbeck, I became interested in the various regimental crests that have been used for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones – as examples of fine craftsmanship. On my various travels since, I have made a point of looking for them in various churchyards and cemeteries.

 

A plan of Sheffield City Cemetery

 

Although City Road Cemetery in Sheffield is quite vast, when photographing the crematorium and chapels and the Blitz Grave for the British Listed Buildings website, I kept my eyes open and was interested to discover that a formally laid out plot in section H accommodates some of them.

 

A CWGC information panel

The history of the CWCG is briefly outlined in an information panel at the entrance to the plot, with particular emphasis placed on the role of Sheffield’s hospitals in caring for the servicemen who were brought to the city. 

 

The H.M. Forces Memorial

In the centre of the plot is a memorial to the members of H.M. Forces, who perished in WWII, which is constructed with a rock-faced fine grained sandstone that looks like it is the ‘Brincliffe Blue’ variety of Greenmoor Rock. The inscription, however, is cut into a central plaque that I think might be made in Darley Dale stone. 

 

A screen wall commemorating burials at Wardsend Cemetery

There are also two screen walls, one in Botticino marble that commemorates the deceased who are buried at Wardsend Cemetery and another in Portland stone, which contain the names of those who were cremated here. 

 

A screen wall commemorating the deceased that were cremated

Along the southern edge of the plot, there are more than 30 special memorial headstones to casualties buried elsewhere in the cemetery in graves that could not be marked individually, which are mainly made with Portland stone but with Botticino marble used for replacements.

 

Special memorial headstones

 

I had a quick look at the various headstones, which commemorate members of the Dutch navy, the Polish army and various British regiments that I had not encountered before – the Loyal, Dorsetshire and Royal Warwickshire regiments, the Intelligence Corps and the Royal Armoured Corps - and also civilians from the Air Raids Precautions (ARP) organisations.  

 

Special memorial headstones showing various regimental crests

 

Nearly 150 other CWGC headstones are scattered throughout the cemetery, but I only encountered a few of these when searching for the Blitz Grave. The included the grey granite memorial to Gunner W. Keen of the Royal Garrison Artillery, the Botticino marble memorial to Lance Corporal G.H. Parker of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the Portland stone memorial to Private H. Beresford of the Black Watch. 

 

Memorials to W. Keen, G.H. Parker and H. Beresford