Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 2

 

Dogtooth spar in a garden wall at Clematis Cottage

When first walking around Ashford-in-the-Water back in 2018, when visiting Holy Trinity church, I was struck by just how attractive it is and, although I just had a random wander around, it is no surprise that except for some modern housing on its north-west outskirts, the entire village is included within the Conservation Area.

 

A map of the Ashford-in-the-Water Conservation Area

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, which had so far been restricted to the south-eastern part of the Conservation Area, the next building on my list was the C17 Retreat, a house built with the traditional vernacular building materials of Carboniferous Limestone for walling, with Millstone Grit dressings and a stone slate roof. 

 

The Retreat

I quickly moved on to the Ashford Arms Hotel, which was surprisingly disused at the time and I only took a few photos of this late C18 building from a distance. I could see that the quoins and dressings are painted gritstone, but I didn’t take much notice of the thinly bedded and irregularly coursed masonry that comprises the walling. 

 

The Ashford Arms Hotel

 

Looking at these high resolution photos, however, I can see that the walling is built with limestone that is very muddy and contains a high proportion of chert, which conforms to the description of limestone from the Eyam Limestone Formation in the Conservation Area Appraisal for Bakewell. 

 

Mines and quarries in the vicinity of Ashford-in-the-Water

In the vicinity of the village, the Building Stones Database for England map explorer shows the mines and quarries that once supplied the very dark and fine grained bituminous limestones from the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation, which was known as Ashford Black Marble – together with the very rare Rosewood Marble – but sources of building stone are not specifically mentioned. 

 

A cast iron milepost

 

Stopping briefly to photograph the early C19 cast iron milepost, which was erected to serve the Chesterfield to Ashford Turnpike route that was opened in 1812, I headed along Greaves Lane to the next building on my list - the mid C19 Nos. 1 and 2. 

 

Nos. 1 and 2 Greaves Lane

 

The roughly squared and coursed rubble walling shows a variety of types of limestone, with grey micrite and calcarenite being dominant, but blocks of thinly bedded light grey/brown muddy limestone containing beds of chert are quite common. 

 

A detail of the walling at Nos. 1 and 2 Greaves Lane

 

The gritstone used for the dressings is not of a very good quality and the quoins to the left side have been very deeply weathered and are now set back from the limestone walling. Most of the surrounds to the central ground and first floor windows have been replaced and, looking at the adjoining Old Forge, which dates to the early C19 and is built of similar materials, the door surrounds look like they have also been renewed. 

 

The Old Forge

 

Looking further along Greaves Lane, it is quite obvious that the principal pattern of the vernacular building materials is generally limestone walling, gritstone dressings and stone slate for the roofs but, as seen at the early C19 Candle House, there is considerable variation in the limestone. 

 

The Candle House

The well squared and coursed limestone walling here is a uniformly pale grey colour and, although I just photographed it from the opposite side of the road and didn’t closely examine the stone for crinoids or any other fossils, this looks more typical of the upper light facies of the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation. 

 

The geology around Ashford-in-the-Water

 

The geological map of the area, however, shows that in addition to the Eyam Limestone Formation, it is the dark facies of the Monsal Dale Formation that outcrops in the vicinity of Ashford-in-the-Water, but information about these in the geological memoir and The Building Stones Database for England is extremely limited. 

 

Thornbury

 

The mid C19 Thornbury, which is listed Grade II Listed for its group value, is built entirely with gritstone ashlar which, together with the dressings to the buildings mentioned above, presumably came from one of the quarries in the Ashover Grit in the vicinity of Bakewell. 

 

Nos. 1 to 3 Hall End Lane

 

Turning onto Hall End Lane, Nos. 1 to 3 provide an another example of thinly bedded pale grey/brown muddy limestone with thin beds of chert, which I again presume to be from a quarry in the Eyam Limestone Formation. Looking closely at the walling, the variable physical and chemical nature of this limestone can clearly be seen. 

 

A detail of the limestone walling at Nos. 1 to 3 Hall End Lane

 

Retracing my steps back to Greaves Lane, I was particularly interested to see that the owner of the adjoining Clematis Cottage has built a very crude limestone rubble wall in front of the iron railings, which contains three very large lumps of crystalline calcite. 

 

A crude limestone rubble wall at Clematis Cottage

 

Two of these comprise dogtooth spar, with the calcite being in the scalenohedral crystal form, with the other consisting of calcite in the botryoidal form. Both are examples of speleothems that have formed through mineral precipitation of water-borne calcite and it is quite likely that these were obtained from one of the mines in the area. 

 

Botryoidal calcite

Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 1

 

Entering Ashford-in-the-Water on the A6020 road

Alighting from the hourly Transpeak bus service from Bakewell at the Ashford Mill stop, I immediately set off to try and find the first of 33 listed buildings and other structures for my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Ashford-in-the Water. 

 

My Ashford-in-the-Water Photo Challenge

 

The Mill was the first on my list and, as is very often the case, I could only get a glimpse through the hedge on the side of the A6 road, from which I could see that this C19 flour mill is built with the traditional vernacular building materials - Carboniferous Limestone walling, Millstone Grit dressings and a stone slate roof, which surprisingly has been partially replaced with red pantiles. 

 

A view of The Mill

 

Looking at one of my photos, I can see two watercourses between the road and the mill, which old Ordnance Survey maps show to be part of a complex of goits, weirs and sluices and other diversions of the River Wye, which once fed marble works and textile mills that operated between Ashford-in-the Water and Bakewell.

 

The 1883 Ordnance Survey map of Ashford-in-the-Water

Current maps assign the name River Wye to two separate channels but, to the east of the A6020 road, Ashford Lake formed part of the landscaping of the grounds of Ashford Hall in the C19, with this continuing to a large mill pond that formed part of the extensive water management works undertaken by Sir Richard Arkwright when constructing Lumford Mill. 

 

Lees Bridge

 

Walking along the bank of the River Wye for a short distance, I got a good view of the C18 Lees Bridge with its large cutwaters, which is built in gritstone and was remodelled in the C19. Just beyond this is the C18 Old Mill House, which provides a further example of limestone walling and gritstone dressings, with part of its stone slate roof being replaced by Welsh slate. 

 

Old Mill House

 

Mill Bridge (1664) is also built in gritstone with cutwaters on both sides and carries a track that the Derbyshire Historic Environmental Record considers to be an ancient trackway that forms part of the conjectural route of the Derbyshire Portway. 

 

A cutwater on the west side of Mill Bridge

 

On the north wall of the bridge, there is an inscription M. Hyde with a 1664 date, which local tradition suggests is related to the death of Reverend Hyde, the vicar of Bakewell, who was thrown off his horse and drowned in the river. 

 

The inscription on Mill Bridge

 

Further along the track, I was very interested to see a very elaborately decorated gritstone gate post, which has a modern wooden gate that opens into a field that is next to the River Wye and is grazed by sheep. I can only think that this perhaps belongs to the estate of Ashford Hall, as I can’t imagine that anyone but a wealthy landowner would spend such money on a utilitarian structure. 

 

An ornately decorated gate post

 

Before reaching the end of the track, I got a view of the most recent bridge to have been built at Ashford-in-the-Water, this time in 1979 as part of the improvements to the A6020 road. It has no features of obvious interest, but the gritstone ashlar to its lower part is quite reddened in places, which is a feature of the Ashover Grit that is still quarried at Stanton Moor and Birchover. 

 

The modern bridge on the A6020 road

A Further Exploration of Bakewell

 

A blue plaque at Lumford House

The month of September 2023 proved to be very productive, with the Heritage Open Days at mediaeval churches in Kirkthorpe and Whitkirk and a trip to Sheffield General Cemetery, followed by an exploration of the geology and geomorphology of Ringinglow, the Ox Stones on Burbage Moor and the Limb Valley. 

 

The British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Bakewell

My next day out was to undertake a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Ashford-in-the-Water, which I had last visited back in 2018, with my primary intention of visiting the Grade II Listed Holy Trinity church; however, while waiting for the bus, I made the most of my time by photographing a few listed buildings that I wasn’t able to see when in Bakewell a year earlier. 

 

East Lodge

 

I started at the East Lodge, formerly named The Cottage on old Ordnance Survey maps, together with the gate piers at the entrance to the drive to Holme Hall. When living in Bakewell, I had a temporary job as a postman and passed these every day on an old bicycle with Sturmey-Archer gears, which couldn’t keep up with my pace of pedalling as I came down the hill on Baslow Road at the end of my round. 

 

West Lodge

The West Lodge (1841) is built in the Tudor Revival style with a pair of very tall centrally placed chimneys, which are set at a diagonal. It is built with Carboniferous limestone walling which, unlike the East Lodge that comprises rubble mixed with gritstone, is well squared and coursed. 

 

Old quarries around Bakewell

 

According to the Conservation Area Appraisal (CAA), the gritstone used in Bakewell for ashlar and dressings came from the Ball Cross Quarry and at Manners Wood, which worked the escarpment of Ashover Grit that runs south from Bakewell to Rowsley and beyond Darley Dale to Matlock.

 

An extract from the Conservation Area Appraisal

 

The CAA goes on to say that limestones from the Eyam Limestone Formation are particularly prevalent as a building material in the Conservation Area, although the only quarry on this formation that I have seen on the Building Stones Database for England map explorer and the Ordnance Survey (OS) maps – the small Cracknowl Quarry at Hassop Station – is described as producing ‘’Derby fossil’, which is presumably polished crinoidal limestone. 

 

Quarries marked on the 1873 Ordnance Survey map

On the OS 1873 map for Bakewell, the three quarries marked are all located on the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation, but I have to say that I have never studied closely the stone in the many historic buildings that I have photographed, when visiting several villages in the White Peak to principally visit their mediaeval churches. 

 

The summer house at Holme Hall

 

My next listed building on Holme Lane to photograph was the late C17 summer house at Holme Hall, with its attached enclosure and garden wall, which show the same pattern of limestone for walling and gritstone for dressings, but I photographed this and the attached boundary wall using my zoom lens and can’t see the details of the stonework. 

 

The carthouse and stable

 

These materials are again seen at the early C19 carthouse and stable on the south side of Holme Lane, with the roof being made from stone slates that are likely to have come from Manners Wood, where they are known to have been worked from some beds in the Ashover Grit. 

 

Another view of the carthouse and stable

At first glance, there was nothing of particular interest to note but, from the photograph of its north-west elevation, I can see that a former opening has been blocked up with limestone that contains bands of chert, which are very dark grey in colour.

 

The location of chert mines and quarries in Bakewell

 

From the early C19 to the mid C20, Bakewell was once a major producer of chert for use in earthenware, which was mined and quarried from the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation in several places, including at the Holme Bank and Holme Hall mines to the north of Holme Lane and across the River Wye at Endcliff Wood and The Undercliff. 

 

A wall and gate piers at the entrance to Holme Grange

 

A short distance further on, I stopped to photograph the walls and gate piers at Holme Grange, which are made of limestone and gritstone respectively, but it seems that the chert bearing limestone was not considered appropriate for walls that front a prestigious house such as this. 

 

Lumford House

 

The Grade II Listed Lumford House, which was not part of my Photo Challenge, dates back to the mid C18 and is built using gritstone with a stone slate roof. A blue plaque explains that it was occupied by Richard Arkwright Junior between 1778 and 1792, following the construction of the nearby Lumford Mill. 

 

Holme Bridge

Crossing the Grade I Listed Holme Bridge (1664), a packhorse bridge that is now a Scheduled Monument, I turned to the south and continued down Buxton Road to the Victoria Mill (c.1800), where I took a photo of its wheel. 

 

The wheel at Victoria Mill

Continuing along Buxton Road, the last stop for my Photo Challenge was the wrought iron railings and gate at the C19 house Saxby, which I had somehow forgotten the year before. Although I had only walked for less than 1 km, I had learned a lot about Bakewell’s industrial history and was looking forward to taking another look at Ashford-in-the-Water, which was once famous for its Ashford Black Marble and associated inlaid products.

 

The railings and gate at Saxby

 

Whirlow Brook Park in Sheffield

 

Whirlow Brook Hall

Continuing my investigation of the geology in the Limb Valley, having located the stream bank exposure of the Local Geological Site (LGS) strata above the Ringinglow Coal, my plan was to try and find the next LGS that is recorded by the Sheffield Area Geology Trust – an exposure of the Redmire Flags at grid reference SK 30839 82960. 

 

The location of the Redmires Flags Local Geological Site

Having retraced my steps across the boulders that form stepping stones in the Limb Brook, I took the public footpath across the footbridge to Whirlowbrook Hall - as marked by the Peak & Northern Footpaths Society with Signpost 475. 

 

The footbridge across the Limb Brook

 

Diverting from the footpath, I followed the course of the brook for some distance and only found various stone walls and associated structures associated with the weirs that diverted the brook to the mill pond a little further downstream, which in turn supplied water to power the Whirlow Wheel – the ruins of which can be seen to the east of Ecclesall Road South.

 

Various structures associated with the weirs at Whirlow mill pond

 

With no obvious paths to follow and not having my Garmin etrex GPS device with me, I decided not to continue my search for the outcrop of the Redmires Flags and instead made my way up the public footpath to Whirlow Brook Park. 

 

A view of Whirlow Brook Hall from the Rose Garden

I was hoping to get a look at Whirlow Brook Hall, the house built in 1906 by Peter Fawcett, who was a director of Thomas Firth and Sons, an important steel maker in Sheffield whose prosperity and reputation was largely achieved as a major manufacturer of armaments. 

 

The geology around Whirlow Brook Hall

 

Although the house isn’t a listed building, I was keen to try and get a close look at the sandstone used in its construction. The nearby quarries in Whirlow and the Brown Edge Quarries both produced predominantly stone slates and flagstones from the Rough Rock, which tends to be thinly bedded in the Sheffield region. 

 

The rear elevation of Whirlow Brook Hall

 

When previously visiting Crosspool and Fulwood - as described in my Language of Stone Blog posts Parts 1, 2 and 3 - I came to the conclusion that the mainly thinly bedded building stone in walls and older houses, which commonly has dark brown iron staining, was quarried from the Rough Rock and the quoins, dressings and gateposts came from the Chatsworth Grit. 

 

The west elevation of Whirlow Brook Hall

Whirlow Brook Hall is a popular venue for various events, with a wedding taking place at the time of my visit, and I therefore just took a few photos of the building at a discreet distance. From these, I can see that the sandstone is quite massive and not thinly bedded, with quite a high proportion of iron stained blocks, which is not uncommon in the Chatsworth Grit. 

 

A view of the rockery

 

Realising that I would have to have a close look at another time, I finished my walk by having a quick wander around the Commemorative Garden, where I didn’t notice any obviously thinly bedded blocks of sandstone here, except the paving.

 

Views of the Sheffield U3A Gardening Group Commemorative Garden

For those that have a greater botanical knowledge and appreciation than myself, this public park is full of interest and, although Sheffield City Council have somewhat neglected it due to budget cuts, the Friends of Whirlow Brook Park do their best to maintain it. Since 2011, the Sheffield U3A Gardening Group have taken responsibility of the rockery and lily pond, which is very attractive, and I assume that they arranged for the simple grey granite memorial that marks the centenary of the end of World War I. 

 

A memorial marking the centenary of the end of WWI

 

Since alighting from the bus at the Norfolk Arms in Ringinglow, I had been walking for just over 2½ hours, but I had managed to take a good look the geology and geomorphology of a part of Sheffield that I didn't know very well. By the time I reached the bus stop at Ecclesall Road South in Whirlow, after a very enjoyable afternoon in the sunshine, I had walked nearly 8 km.

 

My walk from Ringinglow to Whirlow