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| St. Peter's church |
Arriving on Doncaster Road after walking from New Edlington, my first stop was the green space on the corner with Crookhill Road, which I was very curious about when seeing it from the top deck of the bus on the way to Doncaster.
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| Quarries marked on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map |
I had thought that this space and similar others along the main road were likely to have been old quarries and, although the main area of quarrying was along the Don Gorge, the 1854 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, shows that several small quarries worked the Cadeby Formation.
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| A general view of the landscaped quarry on Doncaster Road |
A few exposures of limestone are still seen, but the quarry has been landscaped with stone walls being built and seating added to provide a small community space; however, it isn't on the website that lists the parks and outdoor spaces in Doncaster and I don’t know when it was created.
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| A remnant of a quarry face |
Continuing along Doncaster Road, it wasn’t long before Conisbrough Castle came in to view, with its keep and south-eastern part of the curtain wall in clear view. Whether its from the top deck of the X3 bus, as it descends Castle Hill or when passing it on the train to the north, I never tire of seeing one of my favourite castles.
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| Conisbrough Castle |
From this viewpoint, I could also see Cadeby Cliff and Constitution Hill on the Magnesian Limestone escarpment beyond the River Don, with views towards High Melton and Barnburgh Cliff – all of which I had seen when undertaking the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment.
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| A view towards Cadeby Cliff and Constitution Hill |
Just 50 metres further down the road, the terraces of houses that form an L shape on the corner of Doncaster Road and Highfield Lane is very unusual, in that the masonry of the walling comprises uncoursed polygonal blocks.
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| Views of the terraced houses on Sheffield Road and Highfield Road |
These houses were built at some time between 1890 and 1901, when the OS maps were revised for the 1892 and 1903 editions respectively, and I had also seen this style of masonry at Whiston Methodist Church (1866) and the church hall of St. Mark’s church (1884) in Grenoside.
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| A view of the terraced houses on Sheffield Road and Highfield Road |
I will probably never know why these very modest houses should be designed like this, and further investigation would be best undertaken by a local historian, and I continued my walk along Doncaster Road/Sheffield Road. Continuing past the area locally known as Five Lane Ends junction, I then took a few general record of photos of the Grade II listed late C18 Red Lion public house for the British Listed Buildings website.
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| The Red Lion public house |
I stopped briefly to take a couple of photos of Kearsley Brook, which is culverted in places and is frequently subject to flooding around Five Lanes End. Save Our Greenbelt have emphasised that the existing problems with flooding may be exacerbated by runoff from the proposed Whitestone Solar Farm at Conisbrough Parks.
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| Views of Kearsley Brook |
Having moved from the Cadeby Formation on to the underlying mudstones and siltstones of the Pennine Upper Coal Measures Formation, I then set off up New Hill towards the centre of Conisbrough, which is set on a fault-bounded outlier of the Cadeby Formation.
I had so far walked nearly 8 km from Edlington Wood and, stopping in a couple of places when winding up New Hill, I did think that it might have been better to have caught my bus on Doncaster Road, rather than continuing up what is quite a steep hill.
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| A view of New Hill |
Its steepness is reflected in the use of retaining walls on Chapel Lane and Beech Hill, which are reinforced with large buttresses. I noted a small outcrop of limestone next to the wall on Chapel Lane, which makes it quite possible that these retaining walls mark the line of a more extensive outcrop, as seen elsewhere in Conisbrough at The Crags.
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| A retaining wall with buttresses on Chapel Lane |
Continuing up West Street for a short distance, I turned right onto High Street where I stopped to take a couple of photos of The Priory, another building on the British Listed Buildings website, but being rendered has little of interest to this Language of Stone Blog.
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| The Priory |
Whenever I am in Conisbrough, I always make a point of visiting St. Peter’s church, which is the oldest building in South Yorkshire, although it is now only opened for services and special events. I therefore carried on along High Street and took advantage of the bright sunshine to take a few photos, before catching the X3 bus from Church Street.
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| St. Peter's church |
Settling down with a book for my journey back to Rotherham, as the bus passed down through the housing estate on Micklebring Grove, the fields of oilseed rape to the south of Sheffield Road and the view of the radio masts in the distance caught my eye.
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| A view of Conisbrough Parks from Micklebring Grove |
On my previous day out, I attended the Save Our Green Belt Coffee Morning to support their campaign against the proposed Whitestone 1 Solar Farm at Conisbrough Parks and then walked from Micklebring to Clifton, to see how the landscape would be affected.
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| Another view of Conisbrough Parks from Micklebring Grove |
Although the fields growing oilseed rape in the foreground would not be affected, the land surrounding the farm in the mid distance, together with the fields up to the foot of the Magnesian Limestone escarpment, would be largely covered with 3.5 metre high solar panels.
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