A Day Out to Blyth in Nottinghamshire

 

Burrows on a face bedded stone in a gate pier to the former Blyth Hall

A busy September 2023, which included three events organised for the Heritage Open Days festival, ended with a day out to Bakewell and Ashford-in-the-Water, where I photographed nearly 40 listed buildings for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge and encountered a considerable variation in the physical properties of the Carboniferous Limestone, used to build most of them. 

 

A Google Map view showing the locations of Treeton and Blyth

 

Two weeks later, I set off to visit the Church of St. Mary and St. Martin in Blyth, Nottinghamshire, which after some searching I discovered was open on a Saturday morning. Although only 20 km from Treeton as the crow flies, my journey involved a bus to Sheffield, a train to Doncaster and another bus to Blyth - a distance of nearly 60 km. 

 

The Great War (1914-1918) by Peter Hart

 

Setting off from Treeton to Sheffield at 8:14 am, I caught the first available train to Doncaster where, while waiting for the hourly No. 25 bus, I used the time to buy a new book from Waterstones to keep me occupied during the 57 minute long journey, before finally arriving in Blyth at 10:47. 

 

The solid and drift geology around Bawtry and Blyth

In the past, I had driven from Sheffield and Rotherham to North Nottinghamshire and Lincoln several times, when I passed through both Blyth and Bawtry and was well aware that they are both set on the Triassic Chester Formation. Furthermore I knew that the vernacular building materials are essentially red brick and pantiles, with dolomitic limestone from the Permian Cadeby Formation used only for churches and other prestigious buildings.

 

My Photo Challenge for Blyth

When first considering making this trip the previous year, the Photo Challenge post code search produced 35 results for Blyth and I was hoping to have a good exploration of the village, but someone had already beaten me to it and, once alighting from the bus, I immediately set about finding the 7 buildings that had for some reason been ignored. 

 

The listed buildings on my Photo Challenge in Blyth

 

Of the 6 buildings that I could gain access to, it was only the Grade II Listed C18 Greystones that had any interest to this Language of Stone Blog, with the front being rebuilt in dolomitic limestone ashlar during the C19.

The rear elevation of the Hospital of Saint John the Evangelist

Towards the southern end of the village green, I took a couple of photographs of a stone building that has a mullioned window in the eastern end of the north elevation. I didn't investigate further, but this is actually the Hospital of Saint John the Evangelist. It was founded in c.1199 at nearby Hadsock, before it was rebuilt on the current site in 1446 using reused limestone blocks - some of which are thinly bedded and reddened.

 

A geological map of the area between Letwell and Blyth

I have noted reddened limestone like this in historic buildings most recently during a trip to Whitwell in Derbyshire, but also in Letwell a few years ago. Both of these villages are set on the Sprotbrough Member of the Cadeby Formation, which is overlain by the red calcareous mudstone of the Edlington Formation. 

Gate piers on Little Lane

 

Walking along Little Lane, I note that the gate piers to a large stuccoed house are built with limestone and different sandstones – one with the typical colouration of a Coal Measures sandstone and another that looks to me like Rotherham Red sandstone; however, although the use of the latter would be considered very unusual so far from its source, I was keen to get to the church and didn’t look closely at it. 

 

The memorial on the village green

 

On the village green, there is a memorial that commemorates the death of the aircrews of Wellington and Halifax bombers that crashed near to Blyth in WWII. It was built in 1997 in the form of a cairn, using what look to be reclaimed road setts, with a concrete cap and inscribed plaques that may be made from polished larvikite.

 

The gateway to the now demolished Blyth Hall

 

Before entering the churchyard, I went to have a quick look at the Grade II Listed entrance gateway (c.1770) to the now demolished Blyth Hall, which is built with dolomitic limestone. Looking closely at the masonry, the limestone blocks are often edge bedded or face bedded and the massive limestone contains thin bands that are differentially weathered. 

 

A detail of the gate pier at the entrance to Blyth Hall

 

In other blocks, there are severely disrupted beds, which makes me think that these may relate to emergent surfaces, volume changes due to shrinkage and variable crystalline cementation etc, rather than sedimentary structures that I associate with typical clastic sediments. Also, some face bedded blocks have circular structures what I think might be burrows, with these appearing as pipe like sections in one of the normally bedded blocks.

 

Details of the limestone used in the entrance gateway to Blyth Hall