Historic Architecture in Whitkirk

The blue plaque at Whitkirk Manor House

My day out to Heath and the Church of St. Peter the Apostle, in the parish of Warmfield Cum Heath, provided a great start to the Heritage Open Days festival but, with the requirement of 6 separate journeys by bus and train now becoming the norm, I could have done with a short break before setting off on another adventure using public transport. 

 

The Metro bus stop map for Leeds city centre

 

With my travel time now beginning to outweigh time spent seeing some interesting geology and photographing various historic buildings, which are typically the focus for a good walk, the planning of my trips is becoming much harder and, on my visit to St. Mary’s church in Whitkirk the next day, I found that that the Metro Leeds city centre bus stop map and the No. 19/19A timetable, with limited stopping points marked and no route map, were not that easy to use. 

 

The No. 19/19A bus timetable for my journey to Whitkirk

Although I thought that I had been very thorough with my preparation, I didn't easily find the location of the bus stop and missed the bus that I had originally planned to catch but, with the 19/19A bus running every 20 minutes, I made the most of the sunshine by taking a few photos of the Grade II* Listed Mill Hill Chapel, which is built with very coarse grained Rough Rock. 

 

Mill Hill Chapel

 

As always, I had prepared a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Whitkirk, which came up with a cluster of 14 buildings including St. Mary’s church and, after finally arriving at the Whitkirk Church bus stop, I immediately set about going to find these. 

 

The Grange

First on my list was the early C19 The Grange, a large house that has been converted into three dwellings and which, along with its separately scheduled gate piers, is Grade II Listed but it has been stuccoed and I didn’t stop to look at it very closely. 

 

No. 396 Selby Road

 

Adjacent to this is No. 396 Selby Road (1794), a brick house with a stone slate roof that I again didn’t have a good look at it and just took a few record photographs. I had never been to this part of Leeds before but, having seen that the area is underlain by Coal Measures strata, with named sandstones – the Emley Rock, Slack Bank Rock and the Thornhill Rock – all within a distance of 2 km, I assumed that sandstone would be the favoured building material. 

 

The geology of the area around Whitkirk

This assumption was soon dispelled when I immediately saw that the mid C18 Nos. 1 and 2 Colton Road and its adjoining buildings on Colton Road are also built in brick or rendered. The 1852 edition of the Ordnance Survey map shows a brick field within 250 metres from the settlement that has grown around St. Mary’s church, but there are no sandstone quarries in the immediate vicinity. 

 

Nos. 1 and 2 Colton Road

 

The early No. 394 Selby Road is another example of the use of render that presumably covers brick and, with it again possessing no features of great interest to this Language of Stone Blog, I just took a couple of general photos and continued along the boundary wall of the churchyard. 

 

No. 394 Selby Road

 

I passed by the Grade II Listed lychgate, which was part of my Photo Challenge, without really taking much notice of it and it was only after I picked up a very informative leaflet about it inside the church, did I go and have another look. 

 

The lychgate at St. Mary's church

Constructed as a war memorial and dedicated in 1949, it incorporates stones that have been recycled from six important war damaged buildings - the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral, the Church of St. Martin-le-Grand in York, Leeds Town Hall and Leeds City Museum.

 

An inscribed volcanic green slate plaque inside the lychgate

 

I have to say that I didn’t look at these at the time, or the timbers that were salvaged from prominent Royal Navy ships and used for the roof trusses, gates and posts, but the volcanic green slate plaque from the Lake District did catch my eye. 

 

Ivy House

 

Next to this is the mid C18 Ivy House, which is again built with local hand made red bricks, whose colour beneath the moderate thick layer of dirt has a brownish tinge and is quite different in colour to the hard extruded red bricks that were made from ground Coal Measures mudstone, once brick making was industrialised in the second half of the C19. 

 

Nos. 3, 3A and 4 Colton Road

 

Making my way back to Colton Road, the large sandstone quoins to No. 1 and Nos. 3, 3A and 4 (1732), which were originally one house, caught my attention mainly for the fact that they are very weathered and were presumably quarried from the local Coal Measures. 

 

No. 5 Colton Road

 

Along with the adjoining No. 5, which Historic England describes as “Brick and rubble, rendered, stone slate and corrugated asbestos roofs”, I just took a few general record photographs to place St. Mary’s church into the context of the surrounding Conservation Area.

 

The remains of the archway to the stables south of No. 5 Colton Road

 

Having owned an original copy of the Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture by R.W. Brunskill many years ago – and since working as a specialist restoration contractor - I appreciate that the colours and textures of brick reflect the underlying geology just as much as stone; however, I was very interested to see that the Remains of Archway to Stables South of Number 5 are built with an iron rich sandstone of unknown provenance that is very eroded in places. 

 

A detail of the stables to the south of No. 5 Colton Road

 

Continuing down Colton Road, the Grade II Listed late C18 Coach House and the early C17 Manor House have had their masonry covered with stucco and roughcast render respectively, but both retain their original stone slate roofs, although I didn’t look closely at them. 

 

The Coach House and Manor House

 

Retracing my steps, I entered the churchyard at its south-east corner and went to find the pair of mid C19 Grade II Listed chest tombs, which commemorate various members of the Robinson and Waite families, before having a look at the exterior of the church.

 

Chest tombs for the Robinson and Waite families