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| The Payne Mausoleum |
During my day out to explore Wath-upon-Dearne and West Melton, I photographed 18 Grade II Listed buildings for the British Listed Buildings website, but none of these possess much merit beyond being good examples of local vernacular architecture.
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| A walk around Wath-upon-Dearne and West Melton |
As a geologist and building stone specialist, however, I had acquired a good appreciation of the characteristics of the Oaks Rock – both as a building stone and seen in a couple of small rock outcrops, the latter being an unexpected bonus. For the last leg of what had turned out to be quite a long walk, I started by finding the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in Wath-upon-Dearne cemetery.
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| The headstone of Private J. Salmons |
Of the dozen that I encountered, ten are made in Portland stone and the other two with Botticino marble, but I only found one new regimental crest – this time the Tank Corps on the Portland stone headstone of Private J. Salmons, which depicts a Mark I tank.
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| A detail of the headstone of Private J. Salmons |
As usual in Victorian cemeteries, there are very many large granite memorials, which are made with pink and grey varieties from Peterhead in Scotland and the Cornubian Batholith in south-west of England respectively and I took a few general record photographs of these.
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| Various granite monuments |
Crossing Cemetery Road to Newhill Park, I then went to have a look at the mausoleum (1834), which was built for Sarah, who was the wife of John Payne, a farmer and Quaker who owned lead mines and also had shares in the Chesterfield Canal.
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| The Payne Mausoleum |
Whilst living at Newhill Grange, in 1785 he commissioned the eminent Doncaster architect William Lindley to build Newhill Hall, but I have not yet discovered the architect responsible for the mausoleum. Nonetheless, it is built with Oaks Rock, which was quarried less than 400 metres to the south and also from a quarry just to the north-west of Newhill Grange.
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| The 1855 Ordnance Survey map of Newhill |
Continuing down Cemetery Road to Stump Cross Road, I was interested to see the fish scale pattern to the massive sandstone cappings of the main entrance gateposts, as well as the large coping stones to the piers along the boundary wall.
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| Stump Cross Road |
Heading down Fitzwilliam Street to the town centre, I was quite surprised to see several large villas with spacious grounds, built in the second half of the C19, which would not look out of place in Broomhill, Broomhall or the other affluent western suburbs of Sheffield.
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| Villas on Fitzwilliam Street |
When I first visitied Wath-upon-Dearne, not long after the closure of numerous collieries, the area was despoiled by waste tips and, as with many mining villages in the area, it was very run down and I didn’t stay long there. On this occasion, however, by taking a good look at its geology and listed buildings, I managed to get a much better appreciation of its history.
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| A converted farm building on Fitzwilliam Street |
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