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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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