St. George's Church in Sheffield

 

A detail of the gritstone used at St. George's church

A week after undertaking my recce in Whirlow and Ecclesall Woods for the forthcoming Sheffield U3A Geology Group November field trip, I took advantage of the continuing bright weather in November by catching a bus to Walkley, to attend the Walkley History Group Drop In, which they hold at the Walkley Carnegie Library. 

 

The approach to St. Mary's church along Howard Road

Having met various members of the group at the Sheffield Heritage Fair, I decided to find out if they had any information about the old quarries at Bole Hill, but they couldn’t help; however, they did say that one of their members, who is associated with St. Mary’s church, seemed to be interested in the idea of me giving a talk to their group and I walked up Howard Road to see if anyone was there on a Saturday morning. 

 

St. George's church

 

It wasn’t open, so I caught a bus back to Sheffield and alighted at the former St. George’s church, which is now part of Sheffield University. Earlier in the year, I had been asked by a member of the Sheffield Area Geology Trust (SAGT) if I knew what building stone had been used here – with his thoughts being that it is Chatsworth Grit, because the Vicar of Sheffield owned the Bell Hagg Quarry – at least when the 1858 edition of Hunt’s Statistics was published. 

 

The north-west corner of St. George's churchyard

 

Photos of this had already been taken for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge and I had only taken a few quick snaps from a distance when passing by. Looking at the very wild grey to orange colouration of the walling on St. George’s Terrace, this does appear similar to the extreme colour variation seen at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary – considered to be the Loxley Edge Rock according to SAGT. 

 

A view up the tower

 

I have seen marked grey to orange colour variation in coarse grained sandstone that I have considered to be Chatsworth Grit, mainly for the presence of significant quantities of quartz pebbles that can be of fingernail size, but I have not seen enough buildings known to be constructed in Loxley Edge Rock to choose between the two, when trying to identify them. 

 

The west door

 

Getting closer to the west door, I could see that the masonry to the lower section of the tower has a much more subtle colour variation from light grey/brown to light brown/orange, with cross-bedding and a pattern of slight blackening that looks like that the result of air abrasive cleaning.

 

A detail of the gritstone at the west end

Looking closely at the fabric, the sandstone is very coarse grained and my first thought was that this was an example of the Chatsworth Grit, which is probably from the Rivelin Valley, but no pebbles were obvious to me – although I have to say that I didn't spend that much time studying the masonry, as I had other things to do.

A view from the south-east

The church was designed by the architectural practice of Woodhead and Hurst of Doncaster and completed in 1825 and, having a quick wander anti-clockwise around the church to take a few more record photographs of its exterior, I didn’t see any see any variations in its masonry. 

 

A view from the north-east

 

This practice was also responsible for Christ Church (1830) in Stannington and for the Boy’s Charity School (1825) at No. 14 East Parade, both of which are built with very coarse grained gritstone that I have also thought is Chatsworth Grit. 

 

A gate pier on Mappin Street

I then went down to the east entrance of the churchyard on Mappin Street, where the large gate piers are made from a single large block of gritstone. These have a very wild and sudden grey to orange colour variation, as previously seen in the walling to the north-west corner of the churchyard on St. George’s Terrace. 

 

Grave slabs on the north side of the churchyard

I didn’t stop to look closely at any of the memorials in the churchyard, which are mainly simple inscribed slabs, with a few larger raised tombs and a couple of table tombs, all of which are made of a very fine grained sandstone that I presume to be Greenmoor Rock from one of the quarries around Brincliffe Edge and Hunters Bar.

 

A pattern produced by air abrasive cleaning

 

After taking another look at the results of air abrasive cleaning adjacent to the west door of the north aisle, I was interested to see several unusual memorials, which comprise a relatively thin moulded slab placed on large plinth like structure consisting of thick slabs of Greenmoor Rock.

 

Memorials at the west end of the churchyard