Barnsley Old Town Conservation Area

 

A detail of the entrance to the Cooper Gallery on Church Street

When briefly visiting the Burton Bank quarry in Barnsley, the distinctive cross-bedding and differential weathering of its graded laminae reminded me of those that I had seen in sandstone used for various ancient monuments and listed buildings in Wakefield and Sandal Magna, which I have assumed to be the Woolley Edge Rock; however, the rock-faced walling on the terraced houses on Burton Bank Road don’t obviously display these characteristics. 

 

Burton Bank quarry

 

During my investigations of the historic architecture of Sheffield, looking at the Sheffield Board Schools and providing photographs for the British Listed Buildings website, I have discovered that very few of the Pennine Coal Measures Group sandstones have characteristics that make them easy to identify or to assign a provenance. 

 

The Triton Stone Library

 

In London, while working in the building restoration industry, I developed stone identification and matching skills that were necessary to satisfy a typical specification from architects and surveyors to “match the existing as closely as possible“ and later devised the Triton Stone Library – a unique practical and educational resource that has been transferred to Sheffield and is now waiting to be displayed in a new university building. 

 

The Old Town Conservation Area in Barnsley

 

As a geologist, I have made a very significant contribution to Geoconservation in Barnsley, while working as the principal surveyor for the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group, but I have not looked closely at its building stones. I therefore decided to have a look at the buildings in the Old Town Conservation Area, while making my usual visits to the Cooper Gallery and The Civic. 

 

The former Queen's Hotel

Leaving the bus station, my first stop was the former Queen’s Hotel, with an attached shopping parade and house, originally built in the late 1860’s for James Fox to designs by Wade and Turner, a notable Barnsley architectural practice, with later additions in 1872 by Turner. 

 

Lions on the Eldon Street elevation of the former Queen's Hotel

 

The stone used for the ashlar is a quite uniformly buff coloured sandstone, with some slight iron stained variation, which is suited to producing fine sculptures, with lions on the Eldon Street elevation and carved heads of presumed local dignitaries on the keystones along Regent Street - all of which were the work of Benjamin Payler.

 

Keystones on Regent Street

There is no sign of any cross-bedding or differential weathering, which makes me think that the sandstone is probably one of the best quality sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group in West Yorkshire, such as Huddersfield stone or perhaps Bolton Woods stone from near Bradford, which was used to build several town halls in West Yorkshire. 

 

The entrance to the former Queen's Hotel on Regent Street

 

On the opposite side of the road, the Courthouse building (1861), by Charles Reeves, is built in an Italianate style and the sandstone ashlar has a very uniform distinctly yellow colour, which again is probably from West Yorkshire. 

 

The Courthouse building

 

Continuing up Regent Street, late Georgian semi-detached and Victorian terraced houses, at Nos. 14-16 and Nos. 17-23 respectively, now occupied by offices, provide further examples of sandstone that is probably locally quarried. Although of better quality than the large number of later Victorian terraced house, which are found in large in the residential suburbs, they are simple designs and local stone will probably have been used for the walling and basic dressings.

 

Townhouses on Regent Street

Another early C19 townhouse at Nos. 13-15, converted to offices, provides a further example of a presumably local sandstone. Apart from the quarry in the Woolley Edge Rock at Burton Bank, the old Ordnance Survey maps mark other quarries on the Oaks Rock and Kent’s Rock, but I have not seen outcrops of these formations or, knowingly, where used as building stone.

 

Nos. 13-15 Regent Street

 

Further up Regent Street, there are the former County Court (1871) by T. C. Sorby – another example of Italianate style architecture on Regent Street, the Classical style former council offices (c1880), offices (1895) at Nos. 8-10 and the old Post Office (1881), also in an Italianate style. 

 

Victorian office buildings on Regent Street

 

At the corner of Regent Street/Church Street is the stone clad steel framed Permanent Building, by J. Richard Wilkinson, was designed in a Classical style with Art Deco features. The foundation stone was laid by Frederick Goodyear, the president of the Barnsley Permanent Building Society, on 7th November 1935 and it was formally opened on the 11th April 1938. 

 

Permanent Building

It seems that the substantial buildings of the second half of the C19 have taken advantage of the developing railway network in northern England, with the best sandstone of very uniform colour and texture being brought in from West Yorkshire or Derbyshire as seen again on the opposite corner at Nos. 17-19 Church Street. 

 

Nos. 17-19 Church Street

Walking down Church Street, on the corner with Royal Street is a former C19 Neo-Classical style bank – lastly occupied by the Royal Bank of Scotland - which is now a cocktail bar. It has a rusticated ground floor and bold pediments to the first window and is again built with very uniformly coloured light brown sandstone ashlar. 

 

The former Royal Bank of Scotland building

I retraced my steps up Church Street towards the Cooper Gallery, passing the former Wakefield and Barnsley Union Bank at No. 27 Church Street and where a red plaque marks a point on the James Hudson Taylor trail. 

 

No. 27 Church Street

 

The Cooper Gallery, together with No. 35 Church Street, was occupied by the Holgate Grammar School, which was originally founded by Thomas Keresforth in 1660. The cross-bedded and iron stained sandstone used for the walling stone would have been quarried locally, but the bold dressings to No. 35 and the elaborate porch to the entrance of the Cooper Gallery look like better quality West Yorkshire sandstone.

 

The Cooper Gallery and No. 35 Church Street

 

Walking back down Church Street, I stopped very briefly at Barnsley Town Hall (1933) to look at the weathered Portland limestone on the surrounding balustrades, where the more resistant large fragments of oyster shells stand proud, after which I took a couple of photographs of the fine travertine floor and principal staircase. 

 

Views of Barnsley Town Hall

Standing at the front of the town hall is the impressive Barnsley war memorial (1925), which was designed by William Thomas Curtis, with a bronze sculpture of a soldier in a greatcoat by John Tweed. The large massive pylon is made in a uniformly buff coloured massive sandstone, which again is probably from West Yorkshire or Derbyshire. 

 

Barnsley war memorial

 

Continuing down to Market Hill, the Butterfield’s Drapery Market building (1902), the National Westminster Bank, the former Yorkshire Bank buildings at No. 30 (1903) and No. 19 (1857), provide yet further examples of similar massive sandstone ashlar. 

 

Various buildings on Market Hill

Having had a quick walk around the Conservation Area, without seeing much locally quarried sandstone, I returned to Barnsley Interchange via Eldon Street, where I briefly stopped at the entrance to the former Civic Hall (1877). Various additions have made over the years, with the listing describing the original building as being built in Matlock stone which shows - as I have discovered in Sheffield - that massive sandstones from the Millstone Grit Group in Derbyshire and West Yorkshire are not easy to distinguish.

 

A detail of the former Civic Hall