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| The Church of St. Lawrence |
My trip to Armthorpe on 9th April 2025, when I visited the Church of St. Leonard and St. Mary, discovered glaciofluvial pebbles in its churchyard, encountered various building stones at St. Mary’s church in Wheatley and then found a mysterious section of an old wall, was already my fourth day out in the month.
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| A newly designed leaflet for All Saints church in Aston |
With the good weather continuing, a couple of days later I caught the No. 71 bus to Aston, to take advantage of a coffee morning at All Saints church. I first visited this church in 2016, shortly after I commenced my investigation of the mediaeval churches of Rotherham at St. Helen’s church in Treeton, and then later in the year during the Heritage Open Days festival.
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| A Photo Challenge for the east end of Sheffield |
As with my visit to All Hallows church in Harthill the week before, I can’t really add anything more to my previous Language of Stone Blog posts that describe its principal features and I shall continue with a brief description of my next day out a few days later - to undertake a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Tinsley, Carbrook and Brightside in the industrial east end of Sheffield.
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| Approaching the Church of St. Lawrence |
Taking the X3 bus from Rotherham and alighting at the Blackburn Meadows Way/Sheffield Road stop, I then walked up St. Lawrence’s Road until I came to the Grade II listed St. Lawrence’s church (1879), by G.E. Street, which was the first building on my list.
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| The south porch |
Entering the churchyard, I approached the south porch and immediately noted that the walling stone is a yellowish/light brown thinly coursed sandstone, with a massive uniformly buff coloured medium grained sandstone used for the dressings.
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| A detail of the decorated arch to the porch |
In the Sheffield region, Crawshaw Sandstone, is the only sandstone that I have seen that has similar physical characteristics to the walling stone, especially in the Sheffield Board Schools, but the stone used for the walling stone in this church is less durable and is differentially weathered to reveal the plane bedding – as clearly seen in the east wall of the chancel.
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| The east elevation of the chancel |
The physical characteristics of the stone used for the dressings is consistent with medium grained sandstone from the Millstone Grit Group, such as Stoke Hall stone from the Kinderscout Grit in Derbyshire and Huddersfield stone from the Rough Rock in West Yorkshire – both of which are widely seen in the board schools and other commercial buildings on Church Street, Fargate and High Street in Sheffield city centre.
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| The vestry to the south of the chancel |
Looking more closely at the south elevation, the quoins to the lower section of the vestry, which was added along with the parish rooms in 1925, are made of a massive dull red sandstone and this has also been used for a buttress on the south aisle.
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| Red sandstone used for quoins |
Moving around to the north elevation, which was in deep shade, some of the sections of the window surrounds, the mullions and the chamfered band course above are also made of a red sandstone, which suggests that the original stone has been replaced at some time in the past.
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| A window in the north aisle |
I didn’t examine the stone very closely, but It looks very much like the Rotherham Red variety of Mexborough Rock, which was widely quarried less than 3 km to the east at Canklow Woods and could have easily been transported along Bawtry Road.
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| A window with a chamfered band course above |
