Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 4

A view up Hall Cross

Since arriving in Ashford-in-the-Water on the Transpeak bus from Bakewell, I had photographed 17 listed buildings and I had seen many examples of the building stones that have been used in the vernacular architecture throughout the White Peak – Carboniferous Limestone and Millstone Grit. 

 

No. 18 Greaves Lane

 

In the vicinity of Ashford-in-the Water, the principal geological formations are the dark facies of the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation (MDLF), the Eyam Limestone Formation – both of which are described in the online GeoIndex Onshore map viewer as containing chert. 

 

A detail of No. 18 Greaves Lane

 

The C17 No. 18 Greaves Lane is built mainly with a thinly bedded brown limestone, with fine laminations and thin beds of chert, with sporadic blocks of dark grey micritic limestone. The window surrounds, one of which has been renewed, are made of reddened gritstone that is a feature of the Ashover Grit at Birchover. 

 

The Building Stones of England report

 

The geological memoir, the Building Stones Database for England map explorer and Building Stones of England: Derbyshire and the Peak District guide, produced by Historic England and the British Geological Survey, actually provide very little information on both the natural outcrops of limestone and the quarries and the only reference to the thinly bedded muddy limestones, with chert, that I have found is by Ian Thomas in the Bakewell Conservation Area Appraisal. 

 

Shamble Cottage

 

Heading up Hall Cross, the late C18 Shamble Cottage has a third storey that was used as a workshop, which is reminiscent of the weaver’s cottages in Honley, West Yorkshire. Although now a picture postcard village, this is a reminder that Ashford-in-the-Water had industries other than the production of Ashford Black Marble, with it possibly being used for weaving and the manufacture of stockings - an industry that was once was prevalent in the village. 

 

A wall with blocks of worked limestone showing conchoidal fracture

 

A little further up the hill, a garden boundary wall provides several examples of the conchoidal fracture that occurs when a block of micritic limestone from the dark facies of the MDLF is worked. Also, it shows that although the fresh limestone is very dark, when weathered it acquires a pale grey patina that makes it difficult to distinguish from limestones from the light facies. 

 

The Vicarage

 

Reaching the end of Hall Cross, I turned down Vicarage Lane and continued down the hill towards Buxton Road. Stopping briefly to photograph The Vicarage (c.1854), which the Historic England (HE) listing describe as being built by the local builder Cox-Wilson, but this is considerably older and of a completely different style to the houses attributed to Francis Cox-Wilson in the Conservation Area Appraisal.

 

A shield in the boundary wall to The Vicarage

 

Like Arncliffe House on Greaves Lane, its steep pitched Welsh slate roofs with tall diamond section Tudor style gritstone chimney stacks make it stand out out from the modest houses seen to date. Its windows, with gritstone dressings, hark back to much earlier architectural styles, which include ogee arched lancets, a shouldered head to the entrance and square headed varieties with stone mullions that are typical of the C17/C18.

 

The Elms

The Elms is another large house built with the by now familiar limestone walling, gritstone dressings and stone slate roofs, with large rectangular chimney stacks, which is dated by HE as early C19 but which I thought from its general form and mullioned windows looked older.

 

The cottage to the east of Rose Cottage

 

Arriving on Buxton Road, the gritstone built Cottage to the east of Rose Cottage (c.1840) is quite unusual in that it has hood mouldings – described by HE as Tudor style - to its ground floor windows, a feature that I can’t ever recall seeing before in domestic architecture.

 

Rose Cottage

HE also suggests that this house might possibly be by Joseph Paxton, as they do with Rose Cottage itself. Certainly, the distinctive chimneys at Rose Cottage are similar to Beeley Lodge (c.1841), where Paxton is believed to have implemented a design by Jeffry Wyatville, as well as other houses that I have seen in Edensor and Pilsley, and the West Lodge (1841) in Bakewell, where no architect is mentioned, but the chimneys are also in a Tudor style.

Another view of Rose Cottage

 

Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 3

 

The village water pump on Greaves Lane

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Ashford-in-the-Water, in the Peak District National Park, next on my list on Greaves Lane was a Grade II Listed late C18 pair of cottages - referred to by Historic England as ‘Clematis Cottage and adjoining cottage’.

 

The front elevation of Clematis Cottage

 

Looking from the other side of the road, I assumed that the limestone walling included blocks of gritstone but, when examining my photos closely, it seems that that the orange colour is due to what is presumably iron staining of the grey micritic limestone. I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this before, but I assume that the bedrock from which it has been quarried is associated with some kind of mineralisation.

 

Ivy House

 

A little further up the road is the early C19 Ivy House, one of a semi-detached pair that is built with uniformly pale grey coloured limestone, which is well squared and coursed. All of the stone from the Carboniferous Limestone is difficult to work, with the micritic varieties from the dark facies of the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation (MDLF) having a conchoidal fracture, which makes it quite easy to recognise when it has been shaped into a building block.

 

A view of the rear of Ivy House and its outbuiding

 

When surveying the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) of the Peak District National Park for their ‘geotourism potential’ back in 1995, while living in Bakewell, I encountered nearly every formation in the Peak Limestone Group and passed through very many villages where the local limestone has been used for the vernacular architecture.

 

The extent of the Peak Limestone Group

 

Also, during visits to several villages to see the mediaeval churches and photograph the associated historic buildings, I have since seen very many limestone built historic buildings. As with The Candle House, I suspect that the stone has been quarried some distance away from the light shelly shelf facies of the MDLF, but records of the quarrying in the area, including the Building Stones of England report and the accompanying Building Stones of England Database map explorer, are actually very poor.

 

The village water pump on Greaves Lane

 

An old village pump, which is surprisingly not listed, is incorporated into the field boundary wall just to the north of Ivy House and its enclosure is largely constructed in dark grey micritic limestone, which shows the distinctive conchoidal fracture where dressed to make coping stones that are used instead of the more traditional gritstone in places.

 

A pair of semi-detached houses built by Francis Cox-Wilson

Opposite Ivy House is a small group of individually designed houses that are the work of Francis Cox-Wilson, built sometime after the 1922 edition (revised in 1919) of the Ordnance Survey map was published - which is the latest map of Ashford-in-the Water to be shown on the National Library of Scotland website.

 

Sunny Lea and adjoining houses

 

They have an appearance that seem to be a last vestige of the Arts and Crafts movement, with limestone and gritstone, including a reddish variety, used in conjunction with roughcast render, brick and Tudor Revival style half-timbered gables and roofs made of plain red tiles – except for the terrace of three houses that includes Sunny Lea, which has a stone slate roof.

 

Gritstone House

 

The early C19 Gritstone House, with its three storeys, is one of a few properties in the village that have the proportions of a town house and has finely tooled ashlar masonry, which was presumably supplied by one of the quarries working the Ashover Grit in the vicinity of Bakewell.

 

The Grange

Walking further up Greaves Lane, I could only get glimpses of The Grange and the principal elevation of Taxus Hill, both of which are early C19 houses that are built with the now familiar coursed rubble limestone walling, gritstone dressings and stone slate roofs.

 

Views of Taxus Hill

 

Continuing up the hill for a short distance, the difference between the limestone used in the gable end wall of Taxus Hill and the adjacent house fronting the road is quite noticeable, with the former being a mixture of micrite and thinly bedded light brown limestone containing beds of chert and the latter being uniformly grey in colour.

 

Chert in the limestone walling of Taxus Hill on Greaves Lane

 

After walking back down the hill to the junction with Hill Cross, I stopped to take a couple of photos of Arncliffe House, which is not listed but its very steep Welsh slate roofs and cusped barge boards give it a very imposing appearance. Also, brown cherty limestone and uniformly grey limestone have been used for its south and north-east elevations respectively.

 

Arncliffe House

 

Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 2

 

Dogtooth spar in a garden wall at Clematis Cottage

When first walking around Ashford-in-the-Water back in 2018, when visiting Holy Trinity church, I was struck by just how attractive it is and, although I just had a random wander around, it is no surprise that except for some modern housing on its north-west outskirts, the entire village is included within the Conservation Area.

 

A map of the Ashford-in-the-Water Conservation Area

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, which had so far been restricted to the south-eastern part of the Conservation Area, the next building on my list was the C17 Retreat, a house built with the traditional vernacular building materials of Carboniferous Limestone for walling, with Millstone Grit dressings and a stone slate roof. 

 

The Retreat

I quickly moved on to the Ashford Arms Hotel, which was surprisingly disused at the time and I only took a few photos of this late C18 building from a distance. I could see that the quoins and dressings are painted gritstone, but I didn’t take much notice of the thinly bedded and irregularly coursed masonry that comprises the walling. 

 

The Ashford Arms Hotel

 

Looking at these high resolution photos, however, I can see that the walling is built with limestone that is very muddy and contains a high proportion of chert, which conforms to the description of limestone from the Eyam Limestone Formation in the Conservation Area Appraisal for Bakewell. 

 

Mines and quarries in the vicinity of Ashford-in-the-Water

In the vicinity of the village, the Building Stones Database for England map explorer shows the mines and quarries that once supplied the very dark and fine grained bituminous limestones from the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation, which was known as Ashford Black Marble – together with the very rare Rosewood Marble – but sources of building stone are not specifically mentioned. 

 

A cast iron milepost

 

Stopping briefly to photograph the early C19 cast iron milepost, which was erected to serve the Chesterfield to Ashford Turnpike route that was opened in 1812, I headed along Greaves Lane to the next building on my list - the mid C19 Nos. 1 and 2. 

 

Nos. 1 and 2 Greaves Lane

 

The roughly squared and coursed rubble walling shows a variety of types of limestone, with grey micrite and calcarenite being dominant, but blocks of thinly bedded light grey/brown muddy limestone containing beds of chert are quite common. 

 

A detail of the walling at Nos. 1 and 2 Greaves Lane

 

The gritstone used for the dressings is not of a very good quality and the quoins to the left side have been very deeply weathered and are now set back from the limestone walling. Most of the surrounds to the central ground and first floor windows have been replaced and, looking at the adjoining Old Forge, which dates to the early C19 and is built of similar materials, the door surrounds look like they have also been renewed. 

 

The Old Forge

 

Looking further along Greaves Lane, it is quite obvious that the principal pattern of the vernacular building materials is generally limestone walling, gritstone dressings and stone slate for the roofs but, as seen at the early C19 Candle House, there is considerable variation in the limestone. 

 

The Candle House

The well squared and coursed limestone walling here is a uniformly pale grey colour and, although I just photographed it from the opposite side of the road and didn’t closely examine the stone for crinoids or any other fossils, this looks more typical of the upper light facies of the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation. 

 

The geology around Ashford-in-the-Water

 

The geological map of the area, however, shows that in addition to the Eyam Limestone Formation, it is the dark facies of the Monsal Dale Formation that outcrops in the vicinity of Ashford-in-the-Water, but information about these in the geological memoir and The Building Stones Database for England is extremely limited. 

 

Thornbury

 

The mid C19 Thornbury, which is listed Grade II Listed for its group value, is built entirely with gritstone ashlar which, together with the dressings to the buildings mentioned above, presumably came from one of the quarries in the Ashover Grit in the vicinity of Bakewell. 

 

Nos. 1 to 3 Hall End Lane

 

Turning onto Hall End Lane, Nos. 1 to 3 provide an another example of thinly bedded pale grey/brown muddy limestone with thin beds of chert, which I again presume to be from a quarry in the Eyam Limestone Formation. Looking closely at the walling, the variable physical and chemical nature of this limestone can clearly be seen. 

 

A detail of the limestone walling at Nos. 1 to 3 Hall End Lane

 

Retracing my steps back to Greaves Lane, I was particularly interested to see that the owner of the adjoining Clematis Cottage has built a very crude limestone rubble wall in front of the iron railings, which contains three very large lumps of crystalline calcite. 

 

A crude limestone rubble wall at Clematis Cottage

 

Two of these comprise dogtooth spar, with the calcite being in the scalenohedral crystal form, with the other consisting of calcite in the botryoidal form. Both are examples of speleothems that have formed through mineral precipitation of water-borne calcite and it is quite likely that these were obtained from one of the mines in the area. 

 

Botryoidal calcite

Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 1

 

Entering Ashford-in-the-Water on the A6020 road

Alighting from the hourly Transpeak bus service from Bakewell at the Ashford Mill stop, I immediately set off to try and find the first of 33 listed buildings and other structures for my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Ashford-in-the Water. 

 

My Ashford-in-the-Water Photo Challenge

 

The Mill was the first on my list and, as is very often the case, I could only get a glimpse through the hedge on the side of the A6 road, from which I could see that this C19 flour mill is built with the traditional vernacular building materials - Carboniferous Limestone walling, Millstone Grit dressings and a stone slate roof, which surprisingly has been partially replaced with red pantiles. 

 

A view of The Mill

 

Looking at one of my photos, I can see two watercourses between the road and the mill, which old Ordnance Survey maps show to be part of a complex of goits, weirs and sluices and other diversions of the River Wye, which once fed marble works and textile mills that operated between Ashford-in-the Water and Bakewell.

 

The 1883 Ordnance Survey map of Ashford-in-the-Water

Current maps assign the name River Wye to two separate channels but, to the east of the A6020 road, Ashford Lake formed part of the landscaping of the grounds of Ashford Hall in the C19, with this continuing to a large mill pond that formed part of the extensive water management works undertaken by Sir Richard Arkwright when constructing Lumford Mill. 

 

Lees Bridge

 

Walking along the bank of the River Wye for a short distance, I got a good view of the C18 Lees Bridge with its large cutwaters, which is built in gritstone and was remodelled in the C19. Just beyond this is the C18 Old Mill House, which provides a further example of limestone walling and gritstone dressings, with part of its stone slate roof being replaced by Welsh slate. 

 

Old Mill House

 

Mill Bridge (1664) is also built in gritstone with cutwaters on both sides and carries a track that the Derbyshire Historic Environmental Record considers to be an ancient trackway that forms part of the conjectural route of the Derbyshire Portway. 

 

A cutwater on the west side of Mill Bridge

 

On the north wall of the bridge, there is an inscription M. Hyde with a 1664 date, which local tradition suggests is related to the death of Reverend Hyde, the vicar of Bakewell, who was thrown off his horse and drowned in the river. 

 

The inscription on Mill Bridge

 

Further along the track, I was very interested to see a very elaborately decorated gritstone gate post, which has a modern wooden gate that opens into a field that is next to the River Wye and is grazed by sheep. I can only think that this perhaps belongs to the estate of Ashford Hall, as I can’t imagine that anyone but a wealthy landowner would spend such money on a utilitarian structure. 

 

An ornately decorated gate post

 

Before reaching the end of the track, I got a view of the most recent bridge to have been built at Ashford-in-the-Water, this time in 1979 as part of the improvements to the A6020 road. It has no features of obvious interest, but the gritstone ashlar to its lower part is quite reddened in places, which is a feature of the Ashover Grit that is still quarried at Stanton Moor and Birchover. 

 

The modern bridge on the A6020 road