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| Samples of dolomitic limestone collected in Hooton Pagnell |
When planning my day out to Hooton Pagnell by public transport, with my main objective to look inside All Saints church and to provide photographs of its historic architecture for the British Listed Buildings website, I also wanted to take another look at its geology.
During surveys of RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in Doncaster, in 1997 for the South Yorkshire RIGS Group and in 2007 to produce the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment when temporarily employed by the British Geological Survey, I visited various sites at Hooton Pagnell.
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| Reef limestone in the retaining wall at All Saints churchyard |
Alighting from the No. 203 bus, opposite the gateway to Hooton Pagnell Hall, a very small exposure of limestone in the retaining wall to All Saints churchyard immediately caught my eye. A closer inspection revealed that the limestone is not well bedded and forms part of a small bryozoan patch reef – other large examples of which I had seen at Anston Stones Wood and Maltby Crags in Rotherham and North Cliff Quarry in Doncaster.
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| The boundary wall at Corner Cottage |
Having completed my investigation of the church, I set off to further explore Hooton Pagnell and, when looking for Corner Cottage, I encountered further examples of unbedded reef limestone in the boundary wall to both sides of its back gate. On the opposite side of the road, the north-west corner of Falcon House is built upon bedded limestone that contains many vughs.
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| Bedded limestone with vughs at the rear of Falcon House |
Retracing my steps back up the B6422 road from the junction with Clayton Lane – a change in altitude of only 3-4 metres - and continuining to the north, anther small reef passes laterally into a well bedded limestone over a distance of a few metres. A small sample that I obtained is dark buff in colour and is composed of well preserved ooliths, which are comparable in size to medium grained sand (0.25-0.5 mm), and it contains some crystalline calcite.
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| Reef limestone and bedded limestone |
The limestone used in the boundary wall here has a yellowish colour and, continuing north along the road for a short distance, Wheatcroft House and the adjoining old farm building is built with similar stone. The thinly bedded limestone that forms its foundations is also yellow, the result of a high sand content, which can be a characteristic of the lower part of the Cadeby Formation – especially when underlain by the Yellow Sands Formation, as at nearby Watchley Crag.
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| Wheatcroft House and adjoining farm building |
Crossing the road to the village cross, looking down into the garden of the old school, I could see quite a substantial outcrop at the foot of the retaining wall, which seems to have both elements of well bedded strata and a reef, but I could not see the exposure that well.
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| An outcrop in the garden of the old school |
Carrying on past Ivy Cottage and Doctors Drive another old farm building on the roadside has the same pattern of yellowish building stone, with thinly bedded limestone forming its foundations, but the character of the limestone again soon changes to another patch reef, with associated oolite.
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| An outcrop of reef limestone on Elmsall Lane |
The sample that I obtained from the outcrop immediately to the west of an old farm building on Elmsall Lane, approximately 20 metres south of the telephone kiosk, is a partially recrystallised buff/yellow oolite, with a very open texture and calcite lined vughs and veins.
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| A sample of limestone with crystal lined vughs and veins |
In this outcrop, there is a domed structure that I thought might possibly be a stromatolite, which do occur in the upper part of the Cadeby Formation, but at this time I had only seen examples of these at the Field Lane Quarry in South Elmsall and it would need an expert to confirm this.
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| A possible stromatolite |
A few metres further to the north, on the other side to the entrance of what I think is probably an old farm, there is another outcrop of a completely different character – a slab like exposure of well bedded limestone with an exposed bedding plane.
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| An outcrop of limestone with an exposed bedding plane |
Continuing along Elmsall Lane for another 50 metres, the foundations to the outbuilding at the entrance to Home Farm provide another example of oolitic limestone, with vughs. Looking at the sample that I obtained with a hand lens, growths of botryoidal calcite can be seen on the surface – a feature of the Cadeby Formation that I had not encountered before.
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| An outcrop in the outbuilding at the entrance of Home Farm |
Walking for another 100 metres, the appropriately named Rock Farmhouse on the opposite side of the road is built upon well bedded limestone, which displays graded bedding and cross-lamination in the yellowish walling stone above it.
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| The outcrop at Rock Farmhouse |
Continuing to the northern end of the village, another small outcrop is seen at the southern end of the large roadside farm building, which forms part of Manor Farm. The limestone here comprises ooliths of various sizes, including much larger pisoliths and some shell fragments, which are set in a fine matrix that often displays growths of crystalline calcite.
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| The outcrop in the roadside building to the north of Manor Farm |
Heading back to the centre of the village, I then walked down Clayton Lane to the war memorial garden, which I will describe later, before carrying on to the junction with the B6422 road and passing another section of a small patch reef, which is at the base of the wall of the outbuilding to the west of Corner Cottage.
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| The outcrop in the outbuilding to the west of Corner Cottage |
Approaching the retaining wall of All Saints churchyard, where I had begun my exploration of Hooton Pagnell, yet another small outcrop of reef limestone is seen at the base of the wall to the outbuilding to the west of Falcon House.
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| The outcrop in the outbuilding to the west of Falcon House |
I have visited very many villages that are set on the Magnesian Limestone escarpment, but Hooton Pagnell is unique in that it is effectively built on and entwined with a series of small reefs. Although care needs to be taken on some of the roads, which do not have pavements, it is an excellent field trip location – as recognised by the late Denys Smith, when devising an excursion to study the Permian rocks of south-central Yorkshire.
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| Outcrops of limestone in Hooton Pagnell |
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