Victoria Road & Church Street in Morley

 

A view of the Church of St. Mary in the Wood from Church Street

Setting off on the TM Travel X54 bus (now the No. 71) from Treeton at 8:14, very few passengers use this early Saturday morning service and, with their driver sticking to the usual habit of speeding very fast along the route into Sheffield, I arrived in time to catch the 8:48 train to Leeds. 

 

A detail of the entrance to the Nelson Arms

Having planned my day out in detail, I quickly made my way to the Corn Exchange D bus stop on Vicar Lane and, at 10:20, I alighted from the No. 52 bus at the Church Street stop in Morley and immediately took a couple of photos of the Nelson Arms public house. 

 

The Nelson Arms

This was not part of the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge that I had prepared for Morley, but I presumed that it is built with sandstone from the Thornhill Rock in the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, which underlies the town and has been extensively quarried for its good quality building stone. 

 

The Thornhill Rock around Morley

 

First on my Photo Challenge was the cast iron milepost on Victoria Road but, being of little interest to this Language of Stone Blog, I retraced my steps along Victoria Road and took a few quick snaps of St. Peter’s Sunday School (1832), which was originally a District National Parish School and is built in a Gothic Revival style. 

 

Views of St. Peter's Sunday School

 

I then had a quick wander around the exterior of St. Peter’s church (1830), an example of a Commissioners’ church, which was built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The architect, R.D. Chantrell, also designed Leeds Minster and the church was built on land granted by the Lord of the Manor, the Earl of Dartmouth. 

 

Views of St. Peter's church

 

The church is quite substantial in its dimensions and I had to take photographs at a distance, except for the sculpted details on the band course beneath the east window of the chancel, which was added c.1885 by Walter Hanstock of Batley, but I didn’t get near enough to the masonry to take a good look at the sandstone that has been used here. 

 

A sculptural detail on the band course beneath the east window

At the junction of Victoria Road and Church Street, No. 55 Church Street is a substantial house that has identical north and east elevations with a central door and a canted bay window to the left, which both appear quite unusually to be the principal façade. 

 

The east elevation of No. 55 Church Street

 

I didn’t study the sandstone close up, but from a distance I can see that it is generally plane bedded, with differentially weathered beds suggesting that it is fine grained and contains a fair proportion of silt. This observation is supported by its grey/light brown colour, which is quite typical of the finer grained Coal Measures sandstones, although it does have some orange iron staining. 

 

The 1894 Ordnance Survey map of the area around Church Street

Heading down Church Street on the west side of the road, I passed a couple of terraces of blackened sandstone houses, which includes back to backs, which are the remains of a development of housing that the 1894 Ordnance Survey (OS) map shows as being built in the second half of the C19. 

 

A remnant of the Albion Mills

 

Passing through an area of mixed residential and commercial premises, where the C19 houses have been demolished and the land has mainly been redeveloped, I briefly stopped to take a photograph of a brick building with stone dressings that caught my eye. I went over to look at a plaque that is attached to it, which I discovered is a memorial to the workers at the Albion Mills who died during the Great European War – dated as 1914-1919. 

 

A war memorial plaque

 

Approaching the junction of Church Street and New Bank Street, I was interested to see a couple of buildings with three shops on the ground floor, which have architectural detailing to the first floor – including a datestone of 1914 above Nos. 2b and 2c – that suggests that these buildings served an additional purpose other than residential use, however, the OS maps don’t highlight them and a Google search doesn’t throw up any information about their history.

 

Nos. 2, 2b and 2c Church Street

 

Planning a Day Out to Morley

 

The Historic England map of the Listed Buildings in Morley

My day out to the Peak District in May 2024, to explore the geology and archaeology of Rowtor Rocks and Stanton Moor and to photograph the listed buildings in Stanton in Peak, proved very productive, although a total of 7 separate bus journeys getting from Treeton and back, which required a great deal of planning, took up most of the day. 

 

Treeton to Morley as the crow flies

 

Just over a week later, I set off to Morley in West Yorkshire, which this time would require two bus journeys and a train journey each way. I had caught the train to Leeds and then travelled by bus from a stop in the city centre to my final destination many times and, on this occasion, I discovered from the West Yorkshire Metro website that I needed to catch the No. 51/52 bus on the Morley Line from Corn Exchange D on Vicar Lane. 

 

Information on routes and the bus stops in Leeds city centre

I have been quite dismayed, however, by the fact that West Yorkshire Metro don’t provide a route map on their bus timetables, which makes it very difficult for a stranger in town to plan a day out without consulting Google Map or undertaking extensive research on the internet – a task that I can do easily on my PC but not on my mobile phone. 

 

Stopping points on the No. 51/52 bus route

 

It also doesn’t help that the current timetable erroneously marks the stopping points, with the starting point for Leeds to Morley routes actually starting in Morley and vice-versa – a fundamental error that I have discovered in other timetables, when planning further days out to Leeds – and that very few timing points are listed. 

 

Timed stopping points on the No. 51/52 bus route

 

After visiting Dewsbury a couple of years earlier, when undertaking research on Dewsbury Town Hall (1886-1889) for my Language of Stone Blog, I discovered that the Historic England description cites gritstone from Holmfirth as being used in its construction, whereas an article written by a someone from the area said that an unspecified local stone had been used. 

 

Dewsbury Town Hall

 

I presume that this was a reference to the Thornhill Rock from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, which had developed a good reputation as a building stone and was extensively quarried at Morley. I also discovered that the architects, Holtom and Fox had also been responsible for Morley Town Hall (1892-95) which, according to the Building Research Establishment publication “The building sandstones of the British Isles” and the Calder Masonry website, is built using Woodkirk Brown stone from the Britannia Quarry. 

 

The location of some of the quarries on the Thornhill Rock

The main reason for my visit to Morley was to see Morley Town Hall and have a walk around the town to look at its listed buildings as part of a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, which I assumed would reveal further examples of locally quarried Thornhill Rock. 

 

A technical information sheet for Woodkirk stone

 

I had only seen this fine grained sandstone in the paving and steps at Quarry House in Leeds, when writing an article for the now online Natural Stone Specialist magazine, following which Pawson Brothers paid for one of my photos for their technical information sheet. Also, along with Howley Park stone from the Thornhill Rock, a sample of Woodkirk stone was included in the Triton Stone Library in London, which has since been redisplayed in a slightly modified form in the Redmires Building at Sheffield Hallam University. 

 

The Triton Stone Library in the Redmires Building 

A Walk From Stanton in Peak to the A6

 

The path from Stanton in Peak to the A6

Leaving Main Road in Stanton in Peak by the public footpath that leads north to the A6, I stopped to have a quick look at the Old Post Office House, which I can’t pinpoint and date from any of the old Ordnance Survey maps, I continued past the village school. 

 

The Old Post Office House

 

From its general appearance, which looks Victorian, I thought that it might be a Board School, which were built following the Education Act of 1870 and, having seen many of these in Sheffield, I always look out for them on my travels. 

 

Stanton in Peak Primary School

 

Looking closely at the inscribed plaque above the entrance, however, it is another example of a gift to the village by Mrs. Thornhill-Gell, which includes the building of the Reading Room in 1876 and the purchase of the first organ at the church the following year. She laid the foundation stone in 1877 and the school was completed by Reverend A.W. Hamilton-Gell in 1879. 

 

The inscription above the entrance to Stanton in Peak Primary School

 

Leaving the village, I soon obtained a view of Shining Bank Quarry, which I spotted from the top of Main Road when I entered the village and visited in 1995, when assessing the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in the Peak District National Park for their geotourism value. 

 

A view of Shining Bank Quarry

 

At the time, it was a working quarry and wasn’t a suitable site for members of the general public to visit, but it did have an excellent exposure of a thick layer of glacial till that lies on top of the Eyam Limestone Formation. Back in 2009, according to the Haddon Estate website, the quarry was near to the end of its life and being restored and the till now appears to be overgrown. 

The escarpment formed by the Ashover Grit

 

With the escarpment formed by the outlier of the Ashover Grit to my right, the British Geological Survey map indicates that along the public footpath I crossed over glacial till and landslide deposits, which both form very uneven ground. 

 

A geological map of the area between Stanton in Peak and the A6

To the west and north-west, both the older Eyam Limestone Formation and the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation both outcrop to form the high ground that rises to an elevation of 356 metres at the Bole Hill trig point to the north-west of Over Haddon. 

 

A panoramic view of high ground formed by Carboniferous Limestone

 

Further to the north, the public footpath descends on to the Bowland Shale Formation, where in one place I noted a distinct change from grassland to bog loving plants and, zooming in with my Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera, I could see that a spring emerges here and the resulting stream has cut a small channel downslope of this. 

 

Boggy ground associated with a spring

Reaching the floodplain of the River Lathkill and the end of the public footpath at Stantonhall Lane, I stopped to look back and take a few photos of the northern end of the Ashover Grit outlier, which rises above Pilhough Lane. 

 

A view of the northern end of the Ashover Grit outlier

 

Continuing along Stantonhall Lane for a short distance, I was surprised to come across the Tudor style Lathkill Lodge, which was built c.1845 for the Thornhill family estate based at Stanton Hall, but wasn't included in my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. 

 

Views of Lathkill Lodge

 

To each side of the entrance to the lodge, there is a stone eagle that I thought might relate to the family crest of William Pole Thornhill, who would have been responsible for construction work on the estate at this time; however, the reference to him on pages 64/65 of Heraldic illustrations, by J. and J. B. Burke, shows only a lion. 

 

A stone eagle at Lathkill Lodge

 

It had taken less than 30 minutes to walk from Stanton in Peak and, before continuing to the bus stop, I stopped on the bridge to have a quick look at the River Lathkill, next to which the lodge is set and at this point is only 100 metres away from the confluence with the River Wye.

 

A downstream view of the River Wye

 

My day out had taken a great deal of planning and I had set off from Treeton 7 hours earlier, with half of this time spent on the 4 buses that had eventually taken me to Birchover, including a brief look at Darley Dale. The following very enjoyable exploration of Rowtor Rocks, Main road in Birchover, Stanton Moor and the historic buildings of Stanton in Peak had made up for the effort and I only had to wait a few minutes before the first of another 3 buses to get me home arrived.

 

An upstream view of the River Wye

 

Stanton in Peak - Part 2

 

The Reading Room

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Stanton in Peak, having already photographed its rear elevation from Holy Trinity churchyard, I turned up Park Lane to take photos of the front elevation of the Grade II Listed Ivy House and its separately listed gatepiers and wall. 

 

Views of Ivy House

As with Yew Tree Cottage on Main Road, the thick hedges partially obscured my view of this late C17 house with C18 and C19 additions, but I could see that the original house, built in the local buff/red coloured Ashover Grit, still retains its stone slate roof but those of the northern extension have been replaced with plain Staffordshire blue tiles. 

 

The north elevation of the house attached to Ivy House

The next building on my list was the late C18 house attached to the west elevation of Ivy House, which again has had itsl stone slate roof replaced with tiles, rather than the usual Welsh slate, which makes me wonder if the Thornhill family had connections with the Staffordshire Potteries. 

 

The south elevation of the house attached to Ivy House

At the junction of Park Lane and Middle Street, the north elevation of a large early C19 farm  outbuilding provides a reminder that, although quarrying dominated the economy of Stanton in Peak in the later part of the C19 and there was lead mining in the area, the settlement was foremost based on agriculture - as recorded by the entry in the Domesday Book. 

 

An old farm building at the junction of Park Lane and Middle Street

Heading down Middle Street, the first building that caught my eye was what I initially thought was a Methodist chapel but, getting closer, I could see an inscribed plaque that informed me that this was the Reading Room, which was built by Mrs. Thornhill Gell and presented to the parish in 1876 and is now used as the village hall. 

 

The Reading Room

On the opposite side of the road is the Grade II Listed Hall Gate Cottage, which dates to the late C18 and has C19 and C20 alterations. Originally a pair of cottages attached to another large agricultural building to the rear, it is only listed for its group value but provides another example of locally quarried Ashover Grit and blue plain tiles for the roof. 

 

Hall Gate Cottage

 

A little further down Middle Road, set back from the road, is the C17 Mount Cottage, which was altered in the C19. Again it is listed for its group value only and provides another example of gritstone with the original stone slates replaced by blue plain tiles and I just took a single photograph of it from the road. 

 

Mount Cottage

 

Immediately next to this,The Mount is built with its front elevation at right angles to the road and, with its its 3 bays and 3 storeys, this Neoclassical style late C18 house was by far the most substantial residence that I had so far encountered in the village. For some reason, which I didn't think about at the time, the upper central window and presumably the one below, which is now obscured by a climbing plant, have been blocked up. 

 

The Mount

 

According to the Conservation Area Appraisal, unlike Wentworth in South Yorkshire for example, the village wasn’t all tied and was once split between the Thornhill and Haddon Hall estates. Independent yeoman farmers have always lived in the village and a house such as this, which contrasts with the surrounding cottages, may well have been built by one of them. 

 

A detail of the 1898 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Survey map

 

The 1898 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Survey map shows that the houses to the north side of Middle Road have been crammed into a very small area of land, with very little space for gardens and this may explain the plot of land used as allotments in the centre of the village. 

 

Cedar Cottage

Butting against the south side of The Mount is the mid C18 Cedar Cottage, where the steeply pitched roof, ridge and gable end stone chimney stacks, coped gable, kneelers, mullioned windows and raised quoins and dressings are quite typical of the period. Here I got talking to the owner, who invited me in to look at the fireplace and gave me permission to photograph the house from the terraced garden on the opposite side of the road. 

 

The fireplace at Cedar Cottage

The adjoining late C18 Acorn Cottage is built with similar materials, with Staffordshire blue bricks also used for the chimney stacks, but it is more modest in its detailing and its flush quoins and window dressings are more akin to the cottages that I had seen elsewhere, although it appears to be a lot more spacious. 

 

Acorn Cottage

 

On the opposite side of the road is the quite substantial 4 bay Gould Cottage (1664), which has a tympanum above the door that has its date and the letters EGL carved in relief, with the lintel below inscribed with WT 1900. 

 

The tympanum and lintel at Gould Cottage

Historic England description states that the house was refronted in 1900, with this presumably referring to the C20 3-light chamfered mullion windows and not to the rebuilding of the front elevation itself, which looks like the original masonry. 

 

Gould Cottage

 

Along with the late C17 Woodlands, which adjoins its west end and is sparsely fenestrated on its front elevation, it is Grade II Listed for its group value only and this may reflect alterations that have been undertaken to the fabric or its interior. 

 

Woodlands

 

The last building on my Photo Challenge was The Cottage, which lies directly opposite Woodlands and is another modest house dated to the late C17, with gritstone and blue tiles used for the walls and roof respectively, but is also listed only for group value.

 

The Cottage

 

Since arriving in Birchover at 11.42, it had taken me 3 hours to have a quick look at Rowtor Rocks, walk up Main Street in Birchover, briefly explore Stanton Moor and photograph the listed buildings in Stanton in Peak and I hadn’t yet stopped for lunch. 

 

The Flying Childers

 

The next No. 172 bus back to Bakewell wasn’t until 16:32, which was too late in the day, but the bus to Darley Dale was due at 15:10 and I therefore decided to catch the latter and, to fill in the time, I would have a pint at the Flying Childers. 

 

The inscribed initials of William Pole Thornhill

Along with a couple who arrived at the same time as me, I was very disappointed to find that it was closed. After taking a couple of general record photos, I noted that the initials WTP were inscribed into the lintels above the entrance and other doors of the building, which are those of William Pole Thornhill, who paid for very many of the houses in the village to be built. 

 

Holly House

When planning my day out, I had made contingencies if my arrival in Stanton in Peak did not coincide closely with the times of the buses and after taking a couple of photos of the Grade II* Listed Holly House, where some of the windows have been blocked up to avoid the window tax, I went in search for the public footpath that would take me to the A6, which involved a walk of 1.5 km as the crow flies.

 

The name plaque at Holly House