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| A triangular vent at Glebe House |
When undertaking a recce for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group March 2022 field trip, while looking for a place to park when visiting the old quarry at Warmsworth Park, we drove through the old village of Warmsworth and I was very interested to see the old bell tower.
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| Listed buildings in Warmsworth |
Following on from trips to Hartley Brook Dike and Darfield Quarry, I decided to go and have a closer look and, as usual when planning my walks, I entered a postcode for Warmsworth on the British Listed Buildings website Photo Challenge and noted that several buildings did not have a photograph taken of them.
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| Vernacular architecture in Warmsworth old village |
Alighting from the X78 bus (now X3) from Rotherham at the High Road/Tenter Road stop, I crossed over the road to have a look at the stone and brick farm buildings and adjacent land which, not appearing to be cultivated or used for grazing, has surprisingly not being developed and adds character to the Conservation Area.
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| A Grade II Listed barn |
From here I got a view of the Grade II Listed barn, of probable early C18 date, which I think is built with massive limestone from the Sprotbrough Member of the Cadeby Formation – which was quarried locally for lime, at least, at the Warmsworth Park quarry and is still been extracted at Warmsworth Quarry for industrial use.
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| Warmsworth old village on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map |
Walking to the east past Quaker Lane and Glebe Street to Backside Lane and then along Low Street East, I passed various buildings built in the same limestone, with both red pantile and Welsh slate roofs, which existed when the 1854 Ordnance Survey map was published – some of which were part of the farms that grew up around the Grade II* Listed Warmsworth Hall (1702).
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| Vernacular architecture in Warmsworth old village |
On the corner of Low Street East and Glebe Street is the Grade II Listed bell tower, which has a plaque that dates it to the C13, although the Historic England listing considers that it is probably from the C16 and the Gatehouse Gazetteer further speculates on this unusual structure.
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| The bell tower |
Turning to the south down Common Lane, I took at good at Glebe House, which is built with roughly squared and coursed rubble walling and has triangular vents in a former agricultural building – a feature that I had only seen before in a C17 farm building on Main Street in Hooton Pagnell.
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| Glebe House |
Retracing my steps to Glebe Street, I was very surprised to see that the old eastern boundary wall to Warmsworth Hall is supported by a series of very large buttresses, for which I can’t see any structural reason whatsoever.
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| A boundary wall with buttresses on Glebe Street |
No. 11 Glebe Street, on the opposite side of the road, is quite unremarkable except that the lower section is built with very thinly bedded limestone, with the upper part having been extended or rebuilt using a much more massive limestone, which is squared and coursed.
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| No. 11 Glebe Street |
The old village is actually underlain by the Brotherton Formation - previously known as the Upper Magnesian Limestone – which typically has very irregular thin beds and is not suitable as dimension stone, with it only being used locally for rubble walling where it outcrops.
In villages such as Campsall, Skellow, Sprotbrough and Wadworth, where the underlying Brotherton Formation can be seen as rubble walling in many historic buildings, very many of these are also rendered - a finish that I don’t recall seeing on the Cadeby Formation – as are many of the older houses in Warmsworth old village.
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| Rendered terraced houses on Low Street East |
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