Graveyard Geology in Tinsley

 

The Royal Navy crest on the headstone of Petty Officer A.T. Clark

St. Lawrence’s church in Tinsley is built with various sandstones and, having taken a set of photos for my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, I went to look for the seven Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstones that are recorded in the churchyard. 

 

The headstone of Gunner A.E. Price

 

The first headstone that I encountered commemorates Gunner A.E. Price of the 92nd Anti-Tank Regiment of the Gordon Highlanders, which is made out of Portland stone. Looking closely at this oolitic limestone, the numerous tiny shell fragments within it are standing proud, which is more typically seen in the WWI headstones. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Gunner A.E. Price

 

Portland stone has also been used for the headstone of Lance Corporal H.E. Powell of the Pioneer Corps, but the fine details of the regimental crest have deteriorated considerably, with the motto below being completely illegible. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Lance Corporal H.E. Powell

Both of these headstones, along with that of Sergeant E.H.C. Hardman of the Royal Air Force, which has been replaced with Botticino marble, appear on the same mason’s worksheet and the grave registration form for them has a date of 18th December 1957. 

 

The regimental crest on the headstone of Sergeant E.H.C. Hardman

Tinsley forms part of the industrial east end of Sheffield, where the steelworks spread all the way along the Lower Don Valley were a major producer of sulphurous atmospheric pollutants. Although by the 1980’s, the Conservative government policy under Margaret Thatcher led to the rapid decline of the local steel industry, it is likely that the industry had an effect on the decay of the Portland stone headstone. This probably also includes the headstone of Petty Officer Telegraphist A.T. Clark of the Royal Navy, where the original stone has been replaced with Botticino 'marble'.

 

The headstone of Petty Officer A.T. Clark

Sandstone is used for the headstones of Private E. Brown of the West Yorkshire Regiment and Lance Bombardier R. A. Bywater of the Royal Field Artillery. I didn’t examine them with my hand lens, but the only sandstones that I have seen used by the CWGC to date are Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Corbar Grit/Ashover Grit and Woodkirk Blue stone from the Thornhill Rock. 

 

The headstones of Private E. Brown and Lance Bombardier R.A. Bywater

The headstone of R. A. Bywater, in particular, has a developed a brown patina that I had seen at Wadsley churchyard in Sheffield and Moorgate Cemetery in Rotherham, where the mason’s worksheet records that Woodkirk Blue stone had been used. 

 

Spalling on the headstone of Private R.A. Bywater

 

The sandstone of this headstone has also started to spall in places, which is more likely in the Thornhill Rock, a sandstone from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation that is not as durable as the Stancliffe Darley Dale stone from the Millstone Grit Group. 

 

The grave slabs of Elizabeth and John Wright Potter

The older grave slabs are made of a fine grained sandstone that is probably from a quarry in the Greenmoor Rock around Brincliffe Edge and Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, which is known as Brincliffe Edge Rock and developed a very good reputation for is monumental quality stone. 

 

The memorial to members of the Gray family

I noted various Victorian memorials made of granite, including the tapering square column with an entablature and topped with an urn, which commemorates various members of the Gray family, but I didn’t take a close look at any of these. 

 

A figurative sculpture carved in Carrara marble

White Italian Carrara marble is used for various memorials and, as seen at Handsworth New Cemetery earlier in the month, the marble is deeply weathered and has developed a saccharoidal texture. The extent of the loss of surface material is seen in the memorial to Arthur and Florence Crossland, where the lead lettering for the former protected the underlying marble from chemical weathering to leave this standing proud, until the letters fell off. 

 

The memorial to Arthur and Florence Crossland

Leaving the churchyard by the Grade II listed lychgate (1877), by G.E. Street, I noted that the boundary wall is built with very irregularly bedded thinly coursed sandstone, which is plane bedded and generally grey in colour but with considerable iron staining in places. 

 

The lychgate

 

Although the quoins to the lychgate and coping stones for the boundary wall are likely to have been brought in from a source of better quality building stone, which could be some distance away, such rough walling has probably been obtained from a local unnamed Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation sandstone, but I can’t see any quarries in the immediate vicinity on the old Ordnance Survey maps. 

 

The geological map of the area around Tinsley

Looking closer at my photographs of the boundary wall, I can see occasional pieces of massive dull red sandstone that look like the one used in the quoins to the 1925 vestry of the church, which I presume to be Rotherham Red sandstone and are most likely to have been used with the occasional brick for contemporary repairs to the wall.

 

The boundary wall to the churchyard