A Walk From Trap Lane to Greystones

 

A view of St. John's church in Ranmoor

Leaving Trap Lane behind me, I headed down Whiteley Wood Road and briefly stopped to photograph the house at the entrance to Meadow Farm, which looks more like a later Victorian lodge to a large country house than a farmhouse. 

 

The farmhouse at Meadow Farm

 

At the time I didn’t look at the stonework but, from my photographs, I can see that that there are at least two phases of construction, with the original part of the house being built in thinly bedded sandstone that looks to me like Rough Rock. The newer masonry is more massive and is quite grey in colour, with many of the blocks having orange to dark rusty brown colouration – a variation that is similar to the sandstone seen at Bents Green House. 

 

The former Methodist chapel on Whiteley Wood Road

 

A little further down the hill is the former Methodist chapel (1789), erected by Mary Mitchell and Sarah Hutton, the daughters of Thomas Boulsover - the inventor of Sheffield plate, who has a memorial at the nearby Wire Mill Dam. It is built in a Coal Measures sandstone, which is buff/light brown in colour with pronounced iron staining and Liesegang rings and quite different to the sandstones that I had already seen during my walk. 

 

The former Methodist chapel on Whiteley Wood Road

 

The next stage of my walk proved to be more complicated than it should have been, having found the public footpath further down Whiteley Wood Road, but I managed to lose the path and found myself criss crossing the fields and encountering various barriers to my progress. 

 

Views when searching for the public footpath to Whiteley Woods

 

Retracing my steps back to the public footpath where it crosses Bluebell Wood Brook, I eventually got back on the right track and encountered various dry stone walls and gateposts – some without walls attached – that made me further wonder where the sandstones were sourced and how they got there, in the days when transport was by horse and cart along poor unmade roads. 

 

Yellow clay on the footpath

 

Following the path through Whiteley Woods, which is set on the siltstones and mudstones beneath the Loxley Edge Rock, in a couple of places I found yellow clay along the path, which is formed by the weathering of mudstone, and a couple of man-made exposures. 

 

A man-made exposure of weathered mudstone

 

Apart from the remains of boundary walls, the only sandstone that I could find was in the form of loose fragments that I presume are derived from the upper slopes. The samples that I collected without my Estwing hammer are fine grained, light muddy grey/brown in colour with orange iron staining in the body of the stone and on weathered surfaces. 

 

Samples of sandstone from Whiteley Woods

 

Following the path through the allotments to Highcliffe Road, I then walked down the hill to Greystones Road and continued past the site of old quarry in the Crawshaw Sandstone, which I have since discovered on Google Map still has a visible face, until I reached High Storrs Rise – where Hornby Court was built on another quarry on the Loxley Edge Rock. 

 

The 1885 Ordnance Survey map of Greystones

 

On the 1855 Ordnance Survey map, this quarry is marked on the edge of the hamlet of Greystones, which grew around the late C18 Greystones Hall and it is therefore very probable that it supplied the stone for all of the houses here and some of the surrounding area.

 

Various historic buildings on Greystones Road

 

Most of the buildings on Greystones Road have been demolished but, on the south side of the road, there is a cluster of buildings that includes Hornby House, Hornby Cottage and a terrace of houses, which clearly show the character of what I presume to be the Loxley Edge Rock. 

 

Hornby Cottage

 

The sandstone used for the walling is massive, but is face bedded where used for the quoins and lintels and is quite clearly distinguishable from both the Greenmoor Rock and what I presume to be the Rough Rock, which I had seen earlier on my walk. Although slightly dirty, the sandstone is quite grey, which might account for the name of the hamlet, with often sharp variation to orange/brown and dark rusty brown – a characteristic that I had seen around Wadsley, Worrall and Oughtibridge, where the Loxley Edge Rock is very coarse grained. 

 

The north-west elevation of Greystones Hall

The last building on my list to photograph for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge was the Grade II Listed Greystones Hall, where there are only very limited views of the various facades from the surrounding roads.

 

The north-east elevation of Greystones Hall

 

The principal north-east elevation is built with uniformly coloured large ashlar blocks, which is quite grey in colour but, unlike that used on the north-west elevation, I don’t think this is Loxley Edge Rock and needs further investigation; however, on this occasion, I just took a few record photographs before heading back to Ecclesall Road to finish a good walk of over 8 km. 

 

My walk from Banner Cross to Greystones