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| A fault in The Cut |
My day out to Honley, as with my trip to Dewsbury the year before, had given me another good insight into the West Yorkshire textile industry, which I had previously mainly associated with the enormous mills such as Salts Mill in Shipley and Dean Clough in Halifax and I made a mental note to further explore the Heavy Woollen District in the near future.
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| The Ordnance Survey map of Anston |
For my next trip, however, I returned to the very familiar ground of Anston Stones Wood in Rotherham - to undertake a recce for the Sheffield U3A Geology Group June 2023 field trip along with Carol, a new member of the group who had volunteered to do the ‘administration’.
Having surveyed Anston Stones Wood for the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group and in detail for Rotherham MBC 25 years previously, as well as leading walks and visiting many other times for my own pleasure, I had already identified most of the points of geological interest.
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| The Anston Parish Council car park |
Knowing that it wouldn’t take more than 2 hours to look at these, I planned to spend the afternoon exploring the old quarries and the North Anston Conservation Area and we therefore started our walk at the Anston Parish Council car park.
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| An embankment built with granite setts |
Passing the cricket ground, we followed the public footpath to a point where another ill defined footpath drops down to a crossing of Anston Brook, where the embankment wall is built with reused granite road setts from various parts of the British Islands.
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| The Anston Stones Wood Geological Trail |
This was included in the Anston Stones Wood Geological Trail, which was produced more than 20 years earlier, but I decided that these were not worth taking a diversion to see on the day and continued to the Little Stones – a scattering of gnarled rocks that form part of a Permian bryozoan reef, which are common in the lower part of the Cadeby Formation in South Yorkshire.
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| An outcrop of dolomitic reef limestone at the Little Stones |
Following the path that looks down over the crags to the railway line, we had a quick look at Dead Man’s Cave, a rock shelter that revealed flint stone tools used by hunters 12,000 years ago, together with bones of reindeer and hyena.
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| Dead Man's Cave |
Our next stop was The Cut, a spectacular gorge like feature where most of the surrounding trees and plants have grown from the numerous joints, fissures and occasional geological fault that can be seen along this section of the walk.
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| The Cut |
Continuing eastward along the path through the wood, we passed the site of an old lime kiln and although the botany and associated wildlife is of great interest in this SSSI, there is nothing of geological interest to see here and we carried on until we reached the steps.
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| The site of an old lime kiln |
Anston Stones Wood is very popular place for walking and the paths are well maintained,
but the steepness of slopes and the general terrain that we have to
negotiate en route have to be taken into account, when organising field
trips for the group - especially in the wetter months.
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| The steps down to Anston Brook |
We stopped briefly to note that the brook now meanders through a much wider valley and, although we didn't go to investigate further on this occasion, thick layers of silt - deposited during times of flood - are exposed along its banks.
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| Anston Brook |
After taking a good look at the information board next to the footbridge and allowing Carol to get her bearings, we then started off on our journey back to the Anston Parish Council car park, which would take us along the south side of Anston Brook.
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| An information board |
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