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