Chapel Hill to Scatcherd Park in Morley

 

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. 

 

The front elevation of Nos. 2-6 Chapel Hill

 

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

 

Victoria Road & Church Street in Morley

 

A view of the Church of St. Mary in the Wood from Church Street

Setting off on the TM Travel X54 bus (now the No. 71) from Treeton at 8:14, very few passengers use this early Saturday morning service and, with their driver sticking to the usual habit of speeding very fast along the route into Sheffield, I arrived in time to catch the 8:48 train to Leeds. 

 

A detail of the entrance to the Nelson Arms

Having planned my day out in detail, I quickly made my way to the Corn Exchange D bus stop on Vicar Lane and, at 10:20, I alighted from the No. 52 bus at the Church Street stop in Morley and immediately took a couple of photos of the Nelson Arms public house. 

 

The Nelson Arms

This was not part of the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge that I had prepared for Morley, but I presumed that it is built with sandstone from the Thornhill Rock in the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, which underlies the town and has been extensively quarried for its good quality building stone. 

 

The Thornhill Rock around Morley

 

First on my Photo Challenge was the cast iron milepost on Victoria Road but, being of little interest to this Language of Stone Blog, I retraced my steps along Victoria Road and took a few quick snaps of St. Peter’s Sunday School (1832), which was originally a District National Parish School and is built in a Gothic Revival style. 

 

Views of St. Peter's Sunday School

 

I then had a quick wander around the exterior of St. Peter’s church (1830), an example of a Commissioners’ church, which was built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The architect, R.D. Chantrell, also designed Leeds Minster and the church was built on land granted by the Lord of the Manor, the Earl of Dartmouth. 

 

Views of St. Peter's church

 

The church is quite substantial in its dimensions and I had to take photographs at a distance, except for the sculpted details on the band course beneath the east window of the chancel, which was added c.1885 by Walter Hanstock of Batley, but I didn’t get near enough to the masonry to take a good look at the sandstone that has been used here. 

 

A sculptural detail on the band course beneath the east window

At the junction of Victoria Road and Church Street, No. 55 Church Street is a substantial house that has identical north and east elevations with a central door and a canted bay window to the left, which both appear quite unusually to be the principal façade. 

 

The east elevation of No. 55 Church Street

 

I didn’t study the sandstone close up, but from a distance I can see that it is generally plane bedded, with differentially weathered beds suggesting that it is fine grained and contains a fair proportion of silt. This observation is supported by its grey/light brown colour, which is quite typical of the finer grained Coal Measures sandstones, although it does have some orange iron staining. 

 

The 1894 Ordnance Survey map of the area around Church Street

Heading down Church Street on the west side of the road, I passed a couple of terraces of blackened sandstone houses, which includes back to backs, which are the remains of a development of housing that the 1894 Ordnance Survey (OS) map shows as being built in the second half of the C19. 

 

A remnant of the Albion Mills

 

Passing through an area of mixed residential and commercial premises, where the C19 houses have been demolished and the land has mainly been redeveloped, I briefly stopped to take a photograph of a brick building with stone dressings that caught my eye. I went over to look at a plaque that is attached to it, which I discovered is a memorial to the workers at the Albion Mills who died during the Great European War – dated as 1914-1919. 

 

A war memorial plaque

 

Approaching the junction of Church Street and New Bank Street, I was interested to see a couple of buildings with three shops on the ground floor, which have architectural detailing to the first floor – including a datestone of 1914 above Nos. 2b and 2c – that suggests that these buildings served an additional purpose other than residential use, however, the OS maps don’t highlight them and a Google search doesn’t throw up any information about their history.

 

Nos. 2, 2b and 2c Church Street

 

Planning a Day Out to Morley

 

The Historic England map of the Listed Buildings in Morley

My day out to the Peak District in May 2024, to explore the geology and archaeology of Rowtor Rocks and Stanton Moor and to photograph the listed buildings in Stanton in Peak, proved very productive, although a total of 7 separate bus journeys getting from Treeton and back, which required a great deal of planning, took up most of the day. 

 

Treeton to Morley as the crow flies

 

Just over a week later, I set off to Morley in West Yorkshire, which this time would require two bus journeys and a train journey each way. I had caught the train to Leeds and then travelled by bus from a stop in the city centre to my final destination many times and, on this occasion, I discovered from the West Yorkshire Metro website that I needed to catch the No. 51/52 bus on the Morley Line from Corn Exchange D on Vicar Lane. 

 

Information on routes and the bus stops in Leeds city centre

I have been quite dismayed, however, by the fact that West Yorkshire Metro don’t provide a route map on their bus timetables, which makes it very difficult for a stranger in town to plan a day out without consulting Google Map or undertaking extensive research on the internet – a task that I can do easily on my PC but not on my mobile phone. 

 

Stopping points on the No. 51/52 bus route

 

It also doesn’t help that the current timetable erroneously marks the stopping points, with the starting point for Leeds to Morley routes actually starting in Morley and vice-versa – a fundamental error that I have discovered in other timetables, when planning further days out to Leeds – and that very few timing points are listed. 

 

Timed stopping points on the No. 51/52 bus route

 

After visiting Dewsbury a couple of years earlier, when undertaking research on Dewsbury Town Hall (1886-1889) for my Language of Stone Blog, I discovered that the Historic England description cites gritstone from Holmfirth as being used in its construction, whereas an article written by a someone from the area said that an unspecified local stone had been used. 

 

Dewsbury Town Hall

 

I presume that this was a reference to the Thornhill Rock from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, which had developed a good reputation as a building stone and was extensively quarried at Morley. I also discovered that the architects, Holtom and Fox had also been responsible for Morley Town Hall (1892-95) which, according to the Building Research Establishment publication “The building sandstones of the British Isles” and the Calder Masonry website, is built using Woodkirk Brown stone from the Britannia Quarry. 

 

The location of some of the quarries on the Thornhill Rock

The main reason for my visit to Morley was to see Morley Town Hall and have a walk around the town to look at its listed buildings as part of a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, which I assumed would reveal further examples of locally quarried Thornhill Rock. 

 

A technical information sheet for Woodkirk stone

 

I had only seen this fine grained sandstone in the paving and steps at Quarry House in Leeds, when writing an article for the now online Natural Stone Specialist magazine, following which Pawson Brothers paid for one of my photos for their technical information sheet. Also, along with Howley Park stone from the Thornhill Rock, a sample of Woodkirk stone was included in the Triton Stone Library in London, which has since been redisplayed in a slightly modified form in the Redmires Building at Sheffield Hallam University. 

 

The Triton Stone Library in the Redmires Building 

A Walk From Stanton in Peak to the A6

 

The path from Stanton in Peak to the A6

Leaving Main Road in Stanton in Peak by the public footpath that leads north to the A6, I stopped to have a quick look at the Old Post Office House, which I can’t pinpoint and date from any of the old Ordnance Survey maps, I continued past the village school. 

 

The Old Post Office House

 

From its general appearance, which looks Victorian, I thought that it might be a Board School, which were built following the Education Act of 1870 and, having seen many of these in Sheffield, I always look out for them on my travels. 

 

Stanton in Peak Primary School

 

Looking closely at the inscribed plaque above the entrance, however, it is another example of a gift to the village by Mrs. Thornhill-Gell, which includes the building of the Reading Room in 1876 and the purchase of the first organ at the church the following year. She laid the foundation stone in 1877 and the school was completed by Reverend A.W. Hamilton-Gell in 1879. 

 

The inscription above the entrance to Stanton in Peak Primary School

 

Leaving the village, I soon obtained a view of Shining Bank Quarry, which I spotted from the top of Main Road when I entered the village and visited in 1995, when assessing the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in the Peak District National Park for their geotourism value. 

 

A view of Shining Bank Quarry

 

At the time, it was a working quarry and wasn’t a suitable site for members of the general public to visit, but it did have an excellent exposure of a thick layer of glacial till that lies on top of the Eyam Limestone Formation. Back in 2009, according to the Haddon Estate website, the quarry was near to the end of its life and being restored and the till now appears to be overgrown. 

The escarpment formed by the Ashover Grit

 

With the escarpment formed by the outlier of the Ashover Grit to my right, the British Geological Survey map indicates that along the public footpath I crossed over glacial till and landslide deposits, which both form very uneven ground. 

 

A geological map of the area between Stanton in Peak and the A6

To the west and north-west, both the older Eyam Limestone Formation and the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation both outcrop to form the high ground that rises to an elevation of 356 metres at the Bole Hill trig point to the north-west of Over Haddon. 

 

A panoramic view of high ground formed by Carboniferous Limestone

 

Further to the north, the public footpath descends on to the Bowland Shale Formation, where in one place I noted a distinct change from grassland to bog loving plants and, zooming in with my Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera, I could see that a spring emerges here and the resulting stream has cut a small channel downslope of this. 

 

Boggy ground associated with a spring

Reaching the floodplain of the River Lathkill and the end of the public footpath at Stantonhall Lane, I stopped to look back and take a few photos of the northern end of the Ashover Grit outlier, which rises above Pilhough Lane. 

 

A view of the northern end of the Ashover Grit outlier

 

Continuing along Stantonhall Lane for a short distance, I was surprised to come across the Tudor style Lathkill Lodge, which was built c.1845 for the Thornhill family estate based at Stanton Hall, but wasn't included in my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. 

 

Views of Lathkill Lodge

 

To each side of the entrance to the lodge, there is a stone eagle that I thought might relate to the family crest of William Pole Thornhill, who would have been responsible for construction work on the estate at this time; however, the reference to him on pages 64/65 of Heraldic illustrations, by J. and J. B. Burke, shows only a lion. 

 

A stone eagle at Lathkill Lodge

 

It had taken less than 30 minutes to walk from Stanton in Peak and, before continuing to the bus stop, I stopped on the bridge to have a quick look at the River Lathkill, next to which the lodge is set and at this point is only 100 metres away from the confluence with the River Wye.

 

A downstream view of the River Wye

 

My day out had taken a great deal of planning and I had set off from Treeton 7 hours earlier, with half of this time spent on the 4 buses that had eventually taken me to Birchover, including a brief look at Darley Dale. The following very enjoyable exploration of Rowtor Rocks, Main road in Birchover, Stanton Moor and the historic buildings of Stanton in Peak had made up for the effort and I only had to wait a few minutes before the first of another 3 buses to get me home arrived.

 

An upstream view of the River Wye