War Graves in Burngreave Cemetery

 

A detail of the headstone of Eliza Willis

Following on from my recce for the June 2023 field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, which explored Anston Stones Wood and the old quarries of North Anston, my last trip in May was to Burngreave Cemetery, which I had briefly explored when photographing its twin chapels and Cross of Sacrifice a couple of years earlier, for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. 

 

Romancing the Stones

 

The following spring, I was subsequently asked to contribute a short article to the Burngreave Messenger entitled Romancing the Stones – an initiative involving the geological educational value of graveyards and cemeteries that has essentially continued with the Bolsterstone Graveyard Project, the “Let’s talk about the stones” walk around Boston Park and Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham – and with a proposed future project at Wardsend Cemetery. 

 

A Google Map view of Burngreave Cemetery

 

On my visit, I had only photographed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones in the vicinity of the Cross of Sacrifice, but looking at the CWGC Microsoft Excel database for Burngreave Cemetery, a total of 298 war graves are listed in the cemetery, which is spread over approximately 16 hectares.

 

A plan of Burngreave Cemetery

 

With the benefit of a plan of the plots in the cemetery and making use of the War Graves Photographic Project website, I narrowed down this total to a list of 40 standard headstones that either had regimental crests not encountered before or were made of granite – a stone used for very many headstones, which can be quite varied in colour and texture and not easy to identify. 

 

My list of war graves to find in Burngreave Cemetery

 

My planned exploration was not straightforward, with parts of the cemetery being wooded or quite heavily overgrown and the underlying Silkstone Rock, Parkgate Rock and intervening softer strata giving it quite a varied topography. On previous visits to various cemeteries in Sheffield, my search for CWGC headstones had been quite random and I therefore undertook a lot of preparation for this systematic search. 

 

The geology at Burngreave Cemetery

 

After catching a bus from Arundel Gate in Sheffield to Ellesmere Road, I photographed Carr Wood House and the north lodge to the cemetery on Scott Road before starting at plot JJ, where I immediate found the Portland limestone headstone of Rifleman A. Stokes of the Queen Victoria's Rifles – a regiment from the Territorial Army. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Rifleman A. Stokes

 

The next headstone that I encountered was for Worker H.V. Ryan, who is described as an Australian Munitions Worker, one of more than 5000 Australian nationals who volunteered to come to Britain, as chemists and other skilled workers, to assist with the production of munitions. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Worker H.V. Ryan

 

Apart from the inscription, there is only a very simple cross and the headstone is made in a dark grey granite of a similar type to one that I had seen at Abbey Lane and Crookes cemeteries which, having sent photos of these to the CWGC, I was informed could be the Vire Blanc or Glenaby granites from France, which was used as an alternative to Scottish Rubislaw granite. 

 

The headstone of Serjeant H. Brown

 

This granite has as a blue/grey colour that is the result of a high concentration of quite large irregular crystals of a ferromagnesian mineral, which could be hornblende rather than the usual biotite. It is is quite even grained without the development of phenocrysts, but the headstone to Serjeant H. Brown of the Yorkshire Regiment, where the regimental crest is indiscernible, has large clots of this mineral. 

 

The headstone of Private W. Sheppard

The headstone of Private W. Sheppard of the Notts & Derby Regiment, otherwise known as the Sherwood Foresters, was not on my list of headstones to photograph but its colour, gently inclined cross-lamination and general appearance distinguishes it as a sandstone, which may be an example of Woodkirk Blue stone – as seen at Moorgate Cemetery and Wadsley parish church. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private W. Sheppard

I next encountered the French granite headstones of Private S.M. Creswick of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and Private G.H. Bradley of the East Yorkshire Regiment but, as with many of these granite headstones, I could not make out their regimental crests and I carried on until I found the headstone of Private J.J. White of the York and Lancaster Regiment. 

 

The Inver granite headstone of Private J.J. White

 

Although I had seen very many examples of this regimental crest, the headstone provides an example of a replacement Scottish Inver granite headstone, which has feldspars that are slightly pink in colour. The headstone was made in 2002, with the inscription and the regimental crest being cut with a CNC milling machine – as also seen in the headstone of Private E.H. Crookes of the Army Service Corps. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private E.H. Crookes

The headstone of Staff Sergeant A.L. Bellinger of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (d.1950) has clipped shoulders, which is the distinguishing characteristic of those commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which fall outside the core WWI and WWII dates of the CWGC. 

 

Possible Hopton Wood limestone headstones

I have seen innumerable buildings built with Portland limestone and I can immediately recognise this, and where used in CWGC headstones, but this one lacks the abundant bivalve shells that usually stand proud when the stone is weathered – as does the headstone of Private S.D. Wood of the East Yorkshire Regiment - and these could be Hopton Wood limestone.

 

Various Botticino 'marble' headstones

 

Including Private G. Mann of the Royal Fusiliers, Corporal T.J. Morrissey of the Rifle Brigade, Gunner J. Talbot of the Royal Horse Artillery and Lance Corporal R.J. Ord of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, there are several examples of Botticino ‘marble’, a Jurassic limestone from Brescia in Italy. 

 

A detail of the headstone of T.J. Morrissey

This polished limestone has been used to make replacement headstones and, quite often, the CWGC record for the headstone contains the monumental mason’s worksheet, which gives the date of the new headstone. The degree of weathering can be determined by the appearance of the stylolites in this stone and, interestingly, the headstone of T. J. Morrissey (1980) appears to be less weathered than G. Mann (1992).

 

A detail of the headstone of Private G. Mann

The twin headstones of Boy Telegraphist H. Willis of the Royal Navy and Head Cook Eliza Willis of the Voluntary Aid Detachment are both made of granite but the former is much darker in colour and looks like the French granite previously seen, but the latter is much lighter in colour and looks like a different variety. 

 

Headstones of Boy Telegraphist H. Willis and Head Cook Eliza Willis

 

In total, I photographed 87 headstones over a period of 2½ hours and managed to find all of those on my list, with the last one being that of Private C. Whitlam of the East Yorkshire Yeomanry, where the crest has a motif of a running fox cut into the Portland stone.

 

A detail of the headstone of Private C. Whitlam