 |
| A detail of the commemorative wall at Morley war memorial |
Continuing my exploration of Morley, having had a quick walk along Victoria Road and Church Street, I made my way down Chapel Hill and soon came to the next building on my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, the rear elevation of the Grade II Listed Nos. 2-6 Chapel Hill – a group of double decker houses designed for steep slopes, which were built in two phases c.1800.
 |
| The rear of Nos. 2-6 Chapel Hill |
Reaching the botom of Chapel Hill, I took a few photos of a few of the buildings that were constructed in the second half of the century, where the local Thornhill Rock has been used for both hammer dressed walling and fine ashlar.
 |
| Victorian buildings at Morley Bottoms |
At Morley Bottoms, all of the roads descend from higher ground, except for Station Road to the east, which I followed for a short distance mainly to obtain views of the front three storied elevation of Nos. 2-6 Chapel Hill, where the lower parts are excavated into the hillside behind.
 | |
|
Although there is now no sign of the stream, Valley Beck, Station Road sits in a distinct valley that is clearly marked on the topographic map of England and along which the Leeds to Huddersfield railway runs, before it enters a tunnel beneath Morley.
 |
| The topography around Morley Bottoms |
When researching my day out, I had noticed that the ground rises very steeply on the south side of Station Road to form Troy Hill, below which the 1854 Ordnance Survey (OS) map marks Pinfold Quarry, but this had closed and was partly redeveloped with houses by the time the 1894 edition of the OS map was published.
 |
| An overgrown face at the old Pinfold Quarry |
I walked along Station Road to investigate and, at the rear of the car parking area behind a row of terraced houses, I encountered an old quarry face that was largely overgrown, but I found a corner where a section of the Thornhill Rock was accessible behind some rubbish bins.
 |
| An exposure of the Thornhill Rock |
Although I didn’t have my Estwing hammer with me, I managed to prise out a loose piece of flaggy sandstone at the base of the exposure and break it into a couple of smaller specimens to add to my rock collection. Examining this at home, these are very fine grained, light brown in colour with thin beds in the body of the stone highlighted by iron staining, with occasional very small flakes of white muscovite mica.
 |
| Specimens of Thornhill Rock |
Retracing my steps to Morley Bottoms, I headed up Queen Street until I got sight of the next building on my list to photograph, the early to mid C19 Dawson House – a textile warehouse with an attached manager’s house. Morley is part of the Heavy Woollen District, where many textile mills operated to produce recycled cloth and it developed as the centre of the shoddy trade.
 |
| Dawson House |
I next went to have a look for Morley Hall, built in 1683 by the textile manufacturer Thomas Dawson, whose descendants presumably later built Dawson House, but I had discovered using Google Street View that this house would not be easy to to see from the public highway; however, from Scarth Gardens it was possible to get glimpses of the house.
 |
| Views of Morley Hall from Scarth Gardens |
My next stop was the Grade II Listed Morley war memorial (1927) in Scatcherd Park, which was not part of my Photo Challenge but, having seen photographs of the memorial in its landscaped flower garden setting, I was very keen to visit it.
 |
| Morley war memorial |
It comprises a bronze statue of Britannia in a Roman dress, who is wearing an elaborate plumed helmet adorned with seahorses and holding a trident in one hand and a statue of a winged man kneeling on one knee in the other. It is set on a tall plinth made of tooled grey granite, with biotite mica, but I didn’t study its minerals with my hand lens and can’t assign a provenance to it.
 |
| A detail of Britannia at Morley war memorial |
On leaving Scatcherd Park, I stopped very briefly to photograph a large boulder of Thornhill Rock, to which is attached a bronze plaque that marks the entrance to Hopkins Gardens. It states that it was presented to the town by Mrs R. Borrough Hopkins and Family on 8th April 1936 on the Golden Jubilee of the Incorporation of the Borough of Morley and also that its area comprises 1 acre 15 perches.
 |
| A commeroration of the opening of Hopkins Gardens |
No comments:
Post a Comment