Hyde Park Cemetery in Doncaster

 

The monument to John Waller

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge in Doncaster, after briefly exploring Bennetthorpe, the next three buildings on my list were the Grand St. Leger Hotel (1801), The Dome (1989) and the mid C19 Hamilton Lodge – none of which are of interest to this Language of Stone Blog – and I continued along Carr House Road until I reached Hyde Park Cemetery. 

 

The lodge at Hyde Park Cemetery

Stopping briefly to photograph the lodge, which is built in dolomitic limestone from the Upper Permian Cadeby Formation, I entered the cemetery and immediately came to the Cross of Sacrifice, which War Memorials Online describes as being made of Portland stone. 

 

The Cross of Sacrifice

I didn’t look at this closely but from a photo that I took of its south side, when the sun came out for the first time, it looks like a medium grained gritstone such as Stancliffe Darley Dale stone (SDD) from the Corbar Grit (Ashover Grit), which I have seen used for several of these crosses. 

 

The Cross of Sacrifice

The last building on my Photo Challenge was the Carr Grange Cemetery chapel (c.1855), which was apparently designed by Robert James Johnson of Newcastle, but this was converted into the Welch Chapel Apartments in 2023. It provides another example of the use of dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation, but I didn’t examine it closely. 

 

The former Carr Grange Cemetery chapel

 

I then stopped to photograph the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstone of Second Lieutenant W. Crabtree of the Lincolnshire Regiment, where the regimental crest has been cut with a CNC milling machine and which the memorial mason’s worksheet (2002) on the CWGC states is made with SDD stone. 

 

The headstone of Second Lieutenant W. Crabtree

I had seen this regimental crest many times before and I was more interested in the pebbles that are scattered in the soil. The geological map shows that the Triassic Chester Formation, which underlies most of Doncaster, is covered in Pleistocene glaciofluvial sand and gravel.

The geological map of the area around Hyde Park Cemetery

The monument to John Waller (d.1876) and members of his family provides another example of the dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation - which outcrops in the western part of Doncaster and forms a distinct escarpment that runs from Nottingham to Sunderland - with Welsh slate used for inscribed panels on each of its six sides. 

 

The monument to John Waller

In the Larger than life guided walk, produced by the Friends of Hyde Park Cemetery (FOHPC), there is speculation that this monument may be a feature that was salvaged from the mediaeval St. George’s church, after it burned down in 1853. 

 

A dislodged panel of Welsh slate

 

When walking around the cemetery, I noted that a very high proportion of the various monuments seemed to have suffered from settlement, with many of these having broken or fallen over. In all cemeteries and graveyards, some settlement is very often seen, but Hyde Park Cemetery is set upon a moderate slope and it is quite likely that the creep of the unconsolidated glaciofluvial sand and gravel has contributed to this disruption. 

 

A view of various monuments that have experienced settlement

 

Using the plot map of the cemetery, downloaded from the FOHPC website, I went in search of the CWGC headstones with regimental crests that I had not encountered before and the first of these was Private M. Millwood of the Royal Defence Corps. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private M. Millwood

Although the worksheet makes no reference to the sandstone used, it looks like SDD stone and this is recorded as being used for the headstone of Corporal T.E. Oliver of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, where weathering and the development of a patina over more than 80 years gives these headstones a very similar appearance. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Corporal T.E.Oliver

The headstone of Serjeant W.A. Bower of the Manchester Regiment is another one that replaces the original and has been inscribed and the regimental crest cut with a CNC milling machine. As with the headstone of W. Crabtree, mentioned above, it has not acquired a patina and the SDD stone still appears quite fresh and retains its buff/light brown colour. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Serjeant W.A. Bower

 

A CNC milling machine makes the replacement headstones much cheaper to produce than the original hand cut regimental crests, but these seem to lack the individual character that is seen on the older headstones and very often toolmarks provide evidence of their machine made nature. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private A. Reed

 

The next headstone that I found, commemorating Private A. Reed of the 11th (Prince Albert’s Own) Hussars, is again a replacement made with a CNC milling machine but the stone used for this is Botticino ‘marble’, a Jurassic limestone from Brescia in Lombardy, Italy. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Corporal G.W. Robinson

 

SDD stone has again been used for the headstone of Corporal G.W. Robinson of the Royal Army Dental Corps and, judging from the 60 headstones in the cemetery that I found, this was used for the vast majority of the vast majority of the 112 CWGC headstones that are recorded here – with the headstone of Private P.C. Mitchell of the South Irish Horse providing another example. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private P.C. Mitchell

 

The last regimental crest that I wanted to find was that of the 6th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry, on the headstone of Private S. Bell. The crest comprises the Royal Coat of Arms, which has extremely fine detailing that is not easy to cut into the medium grained SDD stone and would be seen to better effect if cut into a limestone. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private S. Bell

Despite criss-crossing the cemetery and having a plot map to help me to locate the headstones, those made of SDD stone are much harder to spot than those made of Portland stone and other limestones and I was unable to find a few that were on my list. 

 

The headstone of Private C.L. Squire

 

The only headstone made of Portland stone that I found was of Private C.L. Squire of the York and Lancaster Regiment, which has weathered to the extent that the details of the regimental crest are no longer very sharp and fragments of the oyster shells are clearly exposed. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private C.L. Squire