Graveyard Geology in Ecclesall

 

The monument to the Shaw family

My trip on the buses and trains to Horbury and Ossett proved to be an excellent day out, having seen the Church of St. Peter and St. Leonard, explored the historic architecture of Horbury and Ossett, finding Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones at Holy Trinity church and then unexpectedly finding an exposure of the Horbury Rock at Storrs Hill Quarry. 

 

The distance covered on my walk

 

The following Wednesday, the Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip to Sheffield Botanical Gardens, Endcliffe Park and to the old quarries on Ecclesall Road and Brincliffe Edge that I led was most memorable for further exmples of rude behaviour by the member who had made inappropriate remarks at the shortened November 2023 meeting, so this report instead provides an account of my next walk in Sheffield a few days later - starting and finishing at Banner Cross.

 

Rubislaw granite headstones

 

My first stop was All Saints churchyard in Ecclesall, with my main objective to try and find the 21 CWGC headstones that are located there. With no grave plot plan to work, this involved a random walk around the churchyard and in the 40 minutes that I spent there I managed to find only 10 of these – 5 of which are made in grey Rubislaw granite, as stated on the mason’s worksheet.

 

A detail of the Rubislaw granite headstone of Sapper W.N. Brewer

Of the other CWGC headstones, 3 are Botticino marble replacements and 2 are made of the original Portland stone, with the one belonging to Lieutenant D. Bradbury of the Royal Medical Corps now at the centre of 2 panels that commemorate his mother and father. 

 

The headstone of Lieutenant D. Bradbury

 

My main interest in the CWGC headstones is the fine relief carvings that depict the regimental crests and I don’t make any attempt to locate private war graves, but I could not help but notice the headstone of Lance Corporal A.A. Tunnercliffe of the Northumberland Fusiliers. 

 

The headstone of Lance Corporal A.A. Tunnercliffe

 

This sandstone memorial looks very much like the Brincliffe Edge Rock variety of the Greenmoor Rock but, along with a few other private headstones in the churchyard, is on the worksheet of Garden & Co. in Aberdeen. They were renowned granite masons and supplied the grey Rubislaw granite headstones mentioned above, but the provenance of the sandstone used for these private memorials is not known. 

 

A tomb with Peterhead and Rubislaw granites

 

While looking for the CWGC headstones, I kept my eyes open for other interesting uses of stone and soon came across a tomb with a hipped pink Silurian Peterhead granite top set on two slabs of a dark grey granite, which I think is another example of the Ordovician Rubislaw granite where the crystal form of the feldspars is more well developed than usual. 

 

The tomb of Isabella Smith

 

The tomb of Isabella Smith (d.1890) is made of a light coloured grey granite that looks like Kemnay granite, which is another Aberdeen granite of similar age to Rubislaw. Both of these granites often show slight foliation, particularly seen in its biotite mica, but Kemnay granite contains a lower proportion of this mineral. 

 

Details of the tomb of Alfred Mitchell-Withers

 

Granite from the Permian Cornubian Batholith, which outcrops as tors on the moors of Devon and Cornwall, is used for the tomb of Alfred Mitchell-Withers (d.1900), where the bronze plaques first caught my eye. It would seem that he was a son of the architect John Brightmore Mitchell-Withers, who designed and restored several churches in Sheffield and the surrounding area. 

 

The tomb of Joseph Jonas

 

The elaborate white Carrara marble tomb of Joseph Jonas (d.1921), a German born steel magnate and Lord Mayor of Sheffield, has fluted Ionic colonnettes made with red granite that looks like the Silurian Ross of Mull variety, with white marble capitals. 

 

A colonnette and capital on the Joseph Jonas tomb

The tomb of the engineer and machine tool maker Amos Joseph Acaster (d.1896) is also made with white Carrara marble, with elaborate floral decoration and an inscribed panel that looks like it could be a variety of larvikite but, as with the blackened top and base, I didn’t look at it closely

 

The tomb of Amos Joseph Acaster

 

Carrara marble is again used for the spectacular monument to George Shaw, the Chairman of Wath Main Collieries Company, which has three large columns supporting a portico at each end of a tall central section with a large inscribed panel an a panel with swags above.

 

The monument to the Shaw family 

 

I had a quick look around All Saints church and came across two large white marble headstones set against the Chatsworth Grit walling at the east end. Most of the inscription on the headstone of Henry Hoole (d.1806) is still quite easy to read, but the inscription of the adjoining stone is now mostly illegible and weathering has left the calcite veins standing proud.

 

White marble headstones at the east end of All Saints church

The Horbury Rock at Storrs Hill Quarry

 

A view of Storrs Hill Quarry

From the time that I alighted from the No. 126 bus in Horbury to finishing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge at Sowood House, I had spent just over 4 hours looking at the Church of St. Peter and St. Leonard, the historic architecture of Horbury and Ossett and the granite monuments and Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in Holy Trinity churchyard. 

 

Quarries on the Horbury Rock

 

My plan for the last leg of a walk was to follow the escarpment of the Horbury Rock and then drop down to the Horbury Quarry, which is listed by the West Yorkshire Geology Trust as a Local Geological Site and has been used by the Leeds Geological Association (LGA) and other geology groups for their field trips. 

 

The topography between South Ossett and Horbury

After photographing Sowood Farmhouse, I followed the public footpath path across a field and was interested to see Rock House (c.1881), which although not a listed building has its roofline dominated by large Dutch gables on each elevation and Tudor style chimney stacks. 

 

Rock House

 

The house was built for George Harrop, who made his fortune in woollens manufacturing and owned the Albion Mills at nearby Horbury Bridge. His son John, one of 10 children, is buried with other members of his family at Holy Trinity church in Ossett. 

 

The Harrop family monument at Holy Trinity church

 

Following the badly eroded path as it dropped down the escarpment, I noticed a very small exposure of flaggy Horbury Rock but, not having my Estwing hammer with me to break off a small piece, I didn’t try and obtain a specimen. 

 

An exposure of Horbury Rock next to the public footpath

 

Turning sharply to the south-east, I was very surprised to see the expensive exposure of the Horbury Rock in the old Storrs Hill Quarry, which for some strange reason I had not noticed when undertaking online research for my day out using various maps. 

 

My first view of Storrs Hill Quarry

 

When looking through various websites on the history of Ossett, it is asserted that stone from this quarry was used to build Sowood Farmhouse and for the rebuilt but since demolished Holy Trinity church in Market Place. Zooming in to the photo that I took of Rock House, the sandstone used for the rear of the house, at least, looks like it has probably come from this quarry.

 

Another view of Storrs Hill Quarry

 

Access to the quarry face was prevented by a sturdy fence topped with barbed wire and I only took a few general photos from a distance. LGA had visited the quarry back in 2016 and the field report refers to the well developed cross-bedding, which is considered to be indicative of a low energy braided river system. 

 

Thick massive beds in the lower section of the quarry face

 

The general physical characteristics of colour and texture could be clearly seen and many parts of the exposure exhibit pronounced orange iron staining. As I have seen in many exposures of Pennine Coal Measures Group (PCMF) sandstones, the lower sections are composed of thick massive beds, with flaggy beds in the upper parts. 

 

A section showing massive lower and upper flaggy beds

 

This change in bedding reflects differences in the flow regime between the lower and upper parts of the river channel in which the sandstone was deposited. The flaggy beds have been subjected to surface physical and biological weathering that lead to the formation of the soil profile. 

 

A section showing flaggy beds

 

Looking on old Ordnance Survey (OS) maps, it can be seen that there is a substantial quarry face to the north side of the path from Sowood Farmhouse, with the area to the south of the section of the path along which I had been walking shown as large mounds of waste rock, which are now thickly covered in gorse. 

 

Gorse covered mounds of waste rock

 

Although a brief description accompanies a photo of graffiti in the Ossett Picture Gallery, I haven’t seen any documentation that records the history or production at this quarry, but it seems to have been quite substantial and I presume that many buildings in Ossett were built with this stone. 

 

The quarry section below the boundary wall to Rock House

 

Continuing past the boundary wall to Rock House, I came to a small exposure of flaggy Horbury Rock exposed beneath waste rock, where I was able to obtain a loose piece of sandstone and break it into smaller pieces by smashing it against the outcrop. 

 

An exposure of flaggy sandstone covered by waste rock

 

Except for the lack of feint iron banding, the fine grain size and muddy grey brown colouration are essentially identical to the specimen of sandstone that I had retrieved from a section of an old dilapidated boundary wall in Horbury. 

 

Specimens of Horbury Rock from Storrs Hill Quarry

 

Stopping briefly to take in the panoramic view across the lower Calder Valley, with the gently undulating landscape underlain by PCMF strata, which included the Emley Moor transmitting station in the distance, I carried on down the path to Jenkin Road. 

 

A panoramic view from the Storrs Hill Quarry

I stopped briefly to photograph the Grade II Listed early C19 Jenkin House, with its elegant 2-storey bow windows, before looking for the public footpath down to Horbury Quarry. I saw a snicket that seemed to coincide with the position of the footpath as marked on my copy of the 1:25,000 scale OS map, but I didn’t see the usual distinctive green signpost at its start. 

 

A view of Jenkin House

Since arriving in Horbury, I had been on the constant move for 4½ hours and had walked over 8 km. Although it was still only 2:30 pm, I had managed to see a good exposure of the Horbury Rock and decided that I had done enough on my day out to Horbury and Ossett. After photographing another substantial boundary wall, I then slowly walked up Jenkin Road to High Street, where I caught the No. 126 bus back to Wakefield.

 

A boundary wall on Jenkin Road

 

Graveyard Geology in Ossett

 

Granite monuments in Holy Trinity churchyard

My brief exploration of the historic architecture of Ossett included a very brief visit to Holy Trinity church, where I just took a few general photographs of its exterior, but I did spend some time looking at the large granite monuments in the north-west section of the churchyard. 

 

The north-west section of Holy Trinity churchyard

 

Over the last couple of years, I had helped my friend Catherine with her Bolsterstone Gravestone Project with the preparation of a Sheffield U3A Geology Group visit to Sheffield General Cemetery, led a walk around Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham and had a look at the memorials in Wardsend Cemetery – all of which had prompted me to revive an interest in these. 

 

London Illustrated Geology Walks - Book 1

 

When working in the building restoration industry in London, it was necessary to develop stone identification and matching skills, to satisfy a typical specification required that “all materials used shall match the existing”. To help me this, I made reference to Dr. Eric Robinson’s London Illustrated Geological Walks to help with this. 

London Illustrated Geology Walks - Book 2

 

A major disadvantage of these is that they were illustrated with black and white photographs and it was therefore necessary to visit the locations mentioned, to get a good appreciation of each type of granite and the often considerable variation in colour and textures found in them. 

 

A selection of British and Irish granites in the Natural Stone Directory

This was the time before the internet and digital cameras enabled photographs to be taken cheaply and the only other resource available to me was the Natural Stone Directory, where my 1995 edition had photos of less than 20 granites from the British Isles. 

 

The Triton Stone Library in London

 

After developing a reasonable working knowledge of the general physical characteristics of granites from the Cornubian Batholith in Devon and Cornwall, Shap light and dark varieties from Cumbria, Rubislaw, Kemnay, Corrennie and Peterhead from Aberdeenshire, Ross of Mull from the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides and others from Ireland, I included many of these in the Triton Stone Library - a unique resource that has now been rehoused in the Redmires Building at Sheffield Hallam University. 

 

An educational resource by Peter Kennett

 

In practice, I can only recall a single occasion when I was approached to potentially find a source of Shap granite to repair the plinth of a statue owned by the Mercers' Company; however, nothing came of this and, as a geologist, I have since just been curious about these for my own interest and make good use of a resource produced by Peter Kennett for schools. 

 

A granite wheel cross

 

At the time of my visit to Ossett, it had rained very heavily and the various monuments and the surrounding ground were very slippery and with the overcast conditions preventing me from seeing these in the best light, I just took a few quick snaps of the granites that caught my eye. 

 

Various granite monuments

 

I have seen pink Peterhead granite this very many times when wandering around cemeteries and churchyards, as well as in Victorian banks and public buildings where it is often used in conjunction with Rubislaw granite and I saw this in a few of the monuments at Holy Trinity church. 

 

Various granite monuments

 

There were other grey granites that I did not recognise, which are probably from Scotland, but the offices of the British Geological Survey in Scotland and England have photographed their comprehensive collections of rock specimens and made these available online. 

 

A detail of Rubislaw granite (21 mm diameter coin)

 

Having had a quick look at the granite memorials, I then had a wander around the churchyard to find some of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones, which had now become a feature of my days out whenever the route for a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge included a churchyard or cemetery. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Corporal C. Fisher

 

I was most interested in finding regimental crests that I had not encountered, with the first of these belonging to Corporal C. Fisher of the 24th (Tyneside Irish) Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The colour of the stone was obscured by algae and it was only after I looked closely that I could see the shell fragments that identify as Portland stone, which is the most common stone used for the CWGC headstones. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Lance Corporal E. Jessop

The Portland stone headstone of Lance Corporal E. Jessop of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers was free of algae but, very nearly 100 years after it was made, the detailing on the crest is not very clear and shell fragments have been weathered proud. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private A. Sheard

The shell content of the Portland stone headstone of Private A. Sheard of the 4th Battalion of the Training Reserve is also quite visible. Limestone reacts with the carbonic acid in rainwater and weathering of this nature is only to be expected, but this would have been exacerbated by the sulphurous emissions from the burnt coal that powered steam engines at the many textile mills in Ossett and led to the severe blackening of the stonework to Holy Trinity church. 

 

Botticino marble headstones

 

The atmospheric pollution may explain the fact that 4 of the WWII headstones that I saw, with inscriptions and the regimental crests cut by a CNC milling machine, are Botticino marble replacements. These were presumably originally made of Portland stone, as the monumental mason’s worksheet for 3 of these includes Private G.E. Hallawell of the Lincolnshire Regiment and Guardsman G. Gosnay of the Grenadier Guards in the same order, whose Portland stone headstones are still quite legible. 

 

The headstones of Private G.E. Hallawell and Guardsman G. Gosnay

 

By now, I had seen nearly 500 hundred CWGC headstones on my travels and I had always been impressed by the way that they were kept clean and I was therefore surprised to see that these are covered in algae; however, Botticino marble, which is actually a Jurassic micritic limestone and not a true marble, weathers to reveal stylolites, veins and organic and inorganic inclusions and the algae highlights the textures formed by these.

 

A detail of the Botticino marble headstone of Fusilier J.W. Davis