From East Bank to West Bank in Winster

 

Winster Methodist Chapel

When planning my day out to undertake a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge in Winster, comprising 53 buildings, my intention was to arrive at 13:08 on the No. 172 bus and then catch the next bus at 15:28 to Darley Dale and travel back to Bakewell on the Transpeak service. 

 

The route of my exploration of Winster

Reaching Rock View on East Bank at 12:46, having managed to photograph 16 of the 18 buildings on my route and walked less than 600 m, my next task was to find the Primitive Methodist Chapel set on the steep slope of Winster Bank, which was not on my list.

 

A dry stone wall on the footpath to the Primitive Methodist Chapel

 

Eventually locating the public footpath, I immediately came across a dry stone boundary wall, which is largely composed of large irregular blocks of a porous, very pale cream coloured Carboniferous Limestone that is full of voids, with smaller roughly rectangular blocks of grey limestone used for later repairs. 

 

A section of the dry stone wall

 

When living in Bakewell and undertaking a survey of the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in the Peak District National Park, from the British Geological Survey memoir, I was aware that some of the Dinantian limestones were affected by secondary dolomitisation, but there wasn’t a single site on my list of places to visit where I was able to see this. Very many years later, the Sheffield U3A Geology Group organised a field trip to Harborough Rocks, but I was unable to attend and this still remains a gap in my fieldwork. 

 

A detail of dolomitised limestone in a dry stone wall

 

Wyns Tor, 50 m to the south of East Bank, is cited in the Geological Conservation Review as “the best example of a tor developed on dolomitized limestone in Britain and the site contains important information on the nature of rock weathering, periglacial processes and landscape evolution in this part of the Pennines”, but I wasn’t aware of this at the time of my visit. 

 

Dolomite tors in the south-east of the Peak District

A little further down the public footpath to the Primitive Methodist Chapel, I spotted a small outcrop at the base of the dry stone wall in which a very open texture with voids can be clearly seen, with many of the stones in the adjoining wall having a similar appearance. 

 

An outcrop of dolomitised limestone next to the public footpath

 

The chapel, which dates to 1823 and was extended in 1850, is built with limestone rubble walling and red gritstone dressings and, after a period of disuse that led to a state of disrepair, has been quite recently restored by Crooks Architecture in Hathersage. 

 

The Primitive Methodist Chapel

 

Although I didn’t have my Estwing hammer with me, I managed to obtain a few small specimens of dolomitic limestone and, examining these with a hand lens, they are very crystalline and while there is no general reaction with hydrochloric acid, calcite crystals in the rock do effervesce. 

 

Specimens of dolomitised limestone

 

Fine specks of a black mineral are scattered throughout the body of the rock and the geological memoir states that manganese – seen in the Permian Magnesian Limestone - and iron were introduced when the dolomitisation occurred. The specimens are also very heavy and this may reflect mineralisation associated with the lead rakes in the immediate vicinity. 

 

Lead rakes shown on the geological map

 

Making my way back up the path, I continued west along East Bank to another path, which led me through an area of very hummocky ground that the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record shows to be the site of the old Weston shaft - “A deep engine shaft, at a disturbed hillock, that leads to extensive pipe and vein workings” - which is part of the Upper Orchard Mine. 

 

The location of the Upper Orchard Mine

I did not have time to explore this part of Winster, where the lead mine and spoil heap extend to 1 ha in area, but a satellite view of this part of the village shows that the area is grassed over and has remained undeveloped, with both the shaft and spoil heap marked on the 1884 and 1899 Ordnance Survey maps as old lead mines. 

 

The 1899 Ordnance Survey map of Winster

Continuing along the public footpath, although I couldn’t see the lead mining area, there are fine views over Winster to the north and north-west and, after stopping to a take a couple of photographs, I made my way down to West Bank. 

 

A view from the path to West Bank