Crookes and Walkley Revisited

 

Crawshaw Sandstone from Walkley Bank Road (21 mm diameter coin)

On the weekend following my field trip in Doncaster with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, I returned to Sheffield to have another look at the area around Crookes and Walkley where, 13 months earlier, I had started my investigation of the Crawshaw Sandstone and its use in the Sheffield Board Schools. 

 

The former Hammerton Street Council School

The Crawshaw Sandstone from Bolehills used for the Sheffield Board Schools, as particularly well seen at the Hammerton Street Council School, is uniformly buff in colour, medium grained and is planar bedded. This contrasts with the more massive varieties of sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group in Derbyshire and West Yorkshire, which have been used for dressings and as ashlar in the Central Schools based at Leopold Street. 

 

A map of the area covered when visiting the Sheffield Board Schools

Although there are very few rock exposures or old quarries in which to see them, when travelling throughout Sheffield to see these schools, I had encountered all of the principal sandstone formations in the city that have supplied building stone of a reasonable quality – as seen in a wide variety of vernacular buildings, boundary walls and paving and road materials, where local sandstone has undoubtedly been used. 

 

Stannington View Road

Catching the No. 52 bus from Handsworth, which links up well with the routes of the buses to Sheffield from Treeton, I walked down to Stannington View road to photograph the old sewer gas lamp for the British Listed Buildings website, before having a quick look at some C19 houses.

 

A Chatsworth Grit kerb stone

Much of the sandstone here is quite iron stained and the planar bedding has differentially weathered, but I would say that Crawshaw Sandstone has been used for the walling, with more massive sandstone used for dressings and Chatsworth Grit for the road kerbs. 

 

A view towards Stannington

I then made my way to Bolehills, stopping briefly to take in the views towards Stannington and have another look at the handful of Crawshaw Sandstone exposures here, before continuing down through the landscaped old quarries to Bole Hill Road. 

 

Views at Bolehills

Continuing to the former Bolehill Board School, I had another look at the Crawshaw Sandstone walling in the caretaker’s house, before walking down Walkley Road to the Walkley Carnegie Library, where it is again used together with Stoke Hall stone dressings. 

 

Crawshaw Sandstone walling

Carrying down Walkley Road, I turned down into the snicket that leads to Parsonage Street, which follows the line of a faulted boundary between the Crawshaw Sandstone and the Middle Band Rock, which is built with rubble stone walls and floored with large coarse sandstone setts. 

 

A snicket from Walkley Road to Walkley Bank Road

With my Estwing hammer, I then collected a couple of small samples of the cross-bedded flaggy Crawshaw Sandstone that is exposed in the retaining wall on the east side of the snicket at Walkley Bank Road, which I had first noticed a few months earlier when exploring the Morley Street and Malin Bridge schools. 

 

An exposure of sandstone on Walkley Bank

Viewed with a hand lens, degraded iron bearing minerals are common in the interstices formed by the quartz grains, with some distinct iron banding and also well defined bedding planes clearly seen with the naked eye. 

 

Fresh surfaces on my specimens of Crawshaw Sandstone

Crossing over the road to Stony Walk, which forms another snicket, I carried down the hill until I reached Woodview Road, where the sandstone used for a terrace of houses comprising Nos. 72-80 has the same characteristics as seen in other houses on my walk so far. 

 

Nos. 72-80 Woodview Road

Noting the coarse sandstone used for more large road setts, which could well be from the quarries in the Loxley Edge Rock at Wadsley Common, with coarser Chatsworth Grit forming the kerbs, I followed Stony Walk down to Walkley Lane. 

 

Road setts and kerb stones at Stony Walk

One of the interesting features of Walkley is the construction details at the junctions of the roads and footpaths, where the coarse sandstone setts form slip resistant surfaces for the pedestrians that use them in winter. I stopped to photograph the road detail on the corner of Walkley Lane/Lonsdale Road before heading down towards Hillsborough.

The junction of Walkley Lane and Lonsdale Road