Brincliffe Edge and Ecclesall Road

 

An outcrop of Greenmoor Rock at Quarry Lane

Arriving at Brincliffe Edge Road, having walked from Kenwood Hall Hotel on my recce for a planned field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, I briefly stopped to photograph the Grade II Listed late Georgian Woodside House.

 

Woodside House

 

Continuing past various Victorian houses that are built with Greenmoor Rock, Brincliffe Edge Close is a C20 housing development that occupies one of two quarries that the 1924 Ordnance Survey (OS) map marks in the grounds of Brinckliffe Tower (1852) – in the year before it was given by Dr. Robert Styring to the people of Sheffield, which opened as Chelsea Park in 1933.

 

A 1924 Ordnance Survey map of Brincliffe Edge

Entering Chelsea Park, I wasn’t aware at the time that the remaining old quarry has been planted with trees and I continued along the path to the house, now called Brincliffe Towers, which has been disused for several years and is in a state of disrepair.

 

Brincliffe Towers

Although fenced off and partly obscured by trees, it is still possible to see enough of the building to appreciate that the Greenmoor Rock used to build it has a very noticeable green tinge, which is due to the presence of chlorite - a mineral that I usually associate with the metamorphosed volcanic rocks that I surveyed in Borrowdale as an undergraduate geologist.

 

Sheltering from the rain in Chelsea Park

 

Before I had a chance to have a good look at it, the heavens opened and I dashed for shelter and waited until the rain subsided. After what seemed an age, the rain eventually stopped and I just took a few photos from the drive to the house, where the Greenmoor Rock is easily distinguished from the massive Derbyshire gritstone, which is used for the dressings.

 

A view of Brincliffe Towers

 

Back on Brincliffe Edge Road, I stopped briefly to photograph the rock outcrop on the corner of Quarry Lane, which had been the last stop on a previous field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group – when we followed the escarpment of the Greenmoor Rock from Meadowhead.

 

An outcrop of Greenmoor Rock at Quarry Lane

 

Walking along Quarry Lane, apart from the name, there is nothing to suggest that the area from here to Psalter Lane was occupied by several substantial quarries that opened in the second half of the C19 to keep up with the expansion of the western suburbs of Sheffield, at the height of its industrial growth – as seen on the 1894 OS map.

 

The location of quarries along Brincliffe Edge on the1894 OS map

Following the snicket at the end of Quarry Lane, I carried on along Brincliffe Hill to the entrance to Chelsea Heights, a housing development that has been built on the former car park of the Omega banqueting suite. I last visited in the early part of 2018, when an old quarry face provided an excellent exposure of the Greenmoor Rock, but there isn’t much to see now from the road.

 

An old quarry face in the Greenmoor Rock at Chelsea Heights

 

Most of the exposure comprises every thinly bedded Greenmoor Rock, which would not have been suitable for any practical use and, as I had seen on a recce for the above mentioned field trip at Morrisons supermarket at Meadowhead, much of the rock is disrupted by a localised shear zone.

 

The old quarry face in the Greenmoor Rock at Chelsea Heights

Looking more closely at sections along the visible quarry face, thinly spaced joints occur both parallel to and at right angles to the quarry face. In several places, it has been reinforced with stone walling and, as I had also previously seen in the Quarry Head Lodge development, rock bolts have been used to stabilise it.

 

A detail of the shear zone in the Greenmoor Rock

 

This site has been of interest to various members of the Sheffield Area Geology Trust (SAGT) for several years and, as part of the 2022 Nether Edge Festival, I noted in SAGT News 2022 that they had led members of the public around the site.

 

The garden at Chelsea Heights

 

From this report, I learned that deep piles had been required in places, to reach bedrock through loose fill that was left after quarrying ceased and that several large blocks of Greenmoor Rock, which had been excavated during the groundworks, are scattered around the development and form various features in a small garden.

 

Details of the garden at Chelsea Heights

 

Grindstones for Sheffield's cutlery industry were produced in large numbers from quarries on Brincliffe Edge, in addition to the flags, steps, heads, sills, gravestones and general building stones and one of these has depictions of masons at work carved into it. More noticeable are the large broad chisel and a lewis, which was used to lift large stones.

 

A specimen of Greenmoor Rock from Chelsea Heights

 

Retracing my steps back to Brincliffe Hill, although I didn’t have my Estwing hammer with me, I was able to prise out a loose piece of Greenmoor Rock from the old quarry face, which is very fine grained, greenish in colour and has carbonaceous material on the bedding planes.

 

A view across the Porter Valley from Brincliffe Hill

Arriving at Psalter Lane, I had an unexpected view of Ranmoor and St. John’s church, which I was more used to seeing from the north side of the Porter Valley and, after taking a couple of photos for my records, I continued to Banner Cross and followed the escarpment down Ecclesall Road.

 

St. John's church in Ranmoor

 

I finished my walk at the old quarry face that now forms the backdrop to the Co-Op supermarket and the various shops and businesses on Marmion Road, which occupy the site of the former John Gregory brickworks.

 

A view of the Greenmoor Rock at Marmion Road

The Greenmoor Rock formation is extremely variable in the Sheffield region and here the sandstone is subordinate, with mudstone and siltstone being dominant. It is only possible to see the various rock types at a distance, but I thought that it would be a good place to bring an afternoon session of a full day field trip to an end.

 

Another view of the Greenmoor Rock at Marmion Road