A Day Out to Eckington - Part 3

 

The former United Methodist Chapel

 

My day out to Eckington had started well, with two exposures of the Parkgate Rock and the discovery of a few new regimental crests to photograph on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in Eckington Cemetery.

 

Coldwell Cottage

 

My next task was to go in search of the remaining 14 historic buildings that were on my list to photograph for the British Listed Buildings website, starting at the early C19 Coldwell Cottage, which is quite unusual in that has a thatched roof.

 

The boundary wall at Coldwell Cottage

 

I didn’t stop to take a good look at the stonework, being more concerned with taking some general photos in challenging lighting conditions but, looking at the boundary wall to the entrance, it is built with a medium grained grey/brown sandstone that has a considerable proportion of iron stained blocks and Liesegang rings.

 

Quarries marked on the Building Stones Database for England

 

Looking at old Ordnance Survey maps, there was a handful of small quarries in the area – in the Silkstone Rock and Parkgate Rock, a couple of which are recorded on the Building Stones Database for England but, as noted during my various explorations in Sheffield and Mosborough, where these are the dominant rock formations, neither seem to possess obvious physical characteristic that distinguish them.

 

The Green

 

The Green, which dates to the late C18, was the next building on my list, but I had to be content with seeing it from a distance through the entrance gates; however, the photo taken with my zoom lens shows that it is also built with light brown sandstone walling, with a considerable proportion of iron stained blocks and this is used for the dressings and a large lintel above the entrance.

 

Southgate Old House

 

Walking up Southgate, I encountered several houses built in similar sandstone, including the mid C18 Southgate Old House, which I had seen on my previous visit to Eckington, where thinner beds of coursed rubble stonework are used.

 

Blue/grey siltstone walling on Gosber Street

Turning onto Gosber Road and continuing to Gosber Street, I came across a boundary wall where the stone is quite different in character, being silty, cross-laminated and predominantly blue/grey in colour, with light brown colouration where its iron bearing minerals have been oxidised. In places, the Liesegang rings have developed into dense concentrations of iron oxides and hydroxides, which I saw in several boundary walls when exploring Mosborough a few months earlier.

 

Liesegang rings and concentrations of iron oxides/hydroxides

In regions where the coal bearing strata were economically very important, borehole logs listed in the geological memoir appendix use the miners’ name bind to describe these and, particularly in the upper part of the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation, these are often associated with ironstones, which were once extensively mined. The nearby Sitwell Estate, owned by the ironmaster George Sitwell, was rich in iron ore and coal and provided the raw materials for Renishaw Ironworks, which was the largest in Derbyshire.

 

Nos. 131-135 High Street

Continuing to the old commercial centre, I followed High Street onto the B6052 road that bypasses the village and carried on until I reached Nos 131-135 High Street, which is built in sandstone with a batted finish. The layer of dirt obscures the colour of the stone and the dressings have been painted, but it is probable that it is another iron rich sandstone that was quarried locally.

 

Nos. 125 and 127 High Street

Broomhall Farm, forming Nos. 125 and 127 High Street, is described by Historic England as “a pair of cottages, formerly one house” but, looking at the detailing of the steps and entrance, it doesn’t look like these are an alteration. The stonework has a similar batted finish to Nos. 131-135 but it is not as dirty and it is iron rich, as seen in all of the buildings that I had stopped to look at in Eckington to date.

 

Agricultural outbuildings at Nos. 125 and 127 High Street

 

On the other side of the road is the quite spectacular former United Methodist Chapel (1875), which has two storeys above a basement that was originally used for the Sunday school. It is designed by an unknown architect, but it seems that the local iron rich sandstone with strong colour variation was not deemed suitable and a much more uniformly coloured Coal Measures sandstone has been used for the walling, presumably with Derbyshire gritstone for the dressings.

 

The former United Methodist Chapel

Returning to the village centre along High Street, I passed a wide range of stone buildings of various ages and the vast majority are built with the familiar grey/light brown sandstone with marked iron staining, including Eckington Junior School (1875), but a late Victorian terrace and the Old School House are built with sandstone that does not have this obvious orange colour variation.

 

The Old School House