Let's Talk About the Stones - Part 2

 

A detail of the Cornish granite used for the headstone of Annie Handley

In preparation for my walk around Moorgate Cemetery in April 2023, which Janet Worrall had given the title “Let’s talk about the stones”, I used the Stroll In The Cemetery guide to track down memorials to John Guest, Richard Chrimes and members of the Beatson/Beatson Clark families. 

 

Memorials to various members of the Habershon family

 

In the Habershon family plot, I found the Italian white marble headstone to John Matthew (d.1894), a sandstone headstone to Alice (d.1918) and a cross to commemorate Matthew Joseph (d.1929), which is made with a grey granite from the Cornubian batholith in south-west England. 

 

The memorial to Harry Crowcroft

 

The memorial to Harry Crowcroft (d.1900) is quite elaborate, with an Italian white Carrara marble angel set on a pedestal that has a polished inscribed shield and oak leaf details that contrast with the adjoining tooled stone. I didn’t get close enough to look at the texture and mineralogy, but it looks too dark to be a Scottish granite and I will have to look at it again another time. 

 

The memorial to members of the Aizlewood family

From a distance, I can tell that the obelisk that commemorates John (d.1907), Sarah (d.1908) and John Arthur (d.1862) Aizlewood is made of the dark pink Peterhead granite, which was commonly used for banks and other prestigious buildings, as well as for memorials. 

 

The memorial to John Barras

 

Rotherham is set upwind of the old steel manufacturing centre along the Lower Don Valley, which stretched all the way from Sheffield, and most of the older memorials in Moorgate Cemetery are blackened by the resultant pollution to various degrees. This makes it difficult to identify the various stones when seen at a distance - for example the monument to John Barras (d.1885). 

 

An inscribed granite panel on the Barras memorial

 

From my my photographs, it looks like the bulk of the memorial is made of blackened massive sandstone, except for the inscribed panel and the urn. Enlarging my photo of the panel, I can see that it is a very pale grey granite with distinct foliation picked out by the alignment of the biotite mica – a feature of both Kemnay and Rubislaw granite. 

 

The headstones of William Pridmore, Joe Smith and Leonard Carrison

 

The headstones to William Pridmore (d.1895), Joe Smith (d.1917) and Leonard Carrison (d.1917) are further examples of just how varied in colour and texture, the granitic rocks used by the memorial masons could be – even before the trade in granite became global. 

 

The headstone of Ada Davis

Moving on to the headstone of Ada Davis (d.1918), the red rather than pink colour of the alkali feldspar made me think that this was perhaps one of the Swedish or Finnish granites that were once imported into Aberdeen for processing, but my detailed photo doesn’t match very well the very many photos of these granites, which are still available and advertised online. 

 

A detail of the red granite used for the Ada Davis headstone

 

The best match that I found was from the British Geological Survey GeoScenic photo archive, where the various Ordovician (450 Ma) Corrennie granite samples have mineralogical and textural characteristics that are similar, despite slightly different amounts of biotite mica. 

 

Specimens of Corrennie granite on the GeoScenic photo archive

 

The monuments to John Evans (d.1881), Sarah Crowther (d.1887) and John Corker (d.1883) have a broadly similar design with a plinth, tapering square section pedestal with a capital topped with an urn. The Evans monument looks like an Aberdeen granite, but the others have a much higher proportion of ferromagnesian minerals than a true granite, which would probably be classified as a gabbro or perhaps a diorite. 

 

The memorials to John Evans, Sarah Crowther and John Corker

 

Looking at more than 110 photographs of Scottish granite specimens on the GeoScenic site, none of them have a high ferromagnesian mineral content and my initial thoughts are that Rustenburg gabbro from South Africa may have been used for one of these, but it really needs an expert in the various stones used in monumental masonry to confirm this. 

 

Memorials to Sarah Williamson and members of the Lee family

 

Of the substantial C20 memorials that I saw, Sarah Williamson (d.1927) looks like a gabbro column, with a capping of grey granite from Cornwall/Devon and William Lee (d.1934) and his family is made of gabbro/dolerite with a capping of Kemnay granite. 

 

Various C21 headstones

 

As a geologist, I never cease to be fascinated by the wide variety of colours and textures that can be seen in the various granites, gneisses and migmatites that are now imported from India, China and Brazil to be used for headstones, but the highlight of this visit to Moorgate Cemetery was the twin headstones to the family of John Hanby.

 

Twin headstones for various members of the Hanby family

 

In the temperate British climate, it has never been a good idea to use marble for external use, because it will react with the carbonic acid in rainwater and this will be exacerbated when there is severe sulphurous atmospheric pollution. This can be seen particularly clearly in the twin Hanby memorials, where the surfaces are so weathered that much of the lead lettering has fallen off.

 

A detail of weathered marble