Architecture and Geology in Whiston

 

A detail of Whiston Methodist Church

 

Following on from my exploration of Moorgate and the Bawtry Road in Rotherham, the next leg on my walk was to head down to Whiston, an attractive and desirable village that I had previously visited back in September 2016, as part of my investigation of the mediaeval churches built in Rotherham Red sandstone. 

 

Views of Whiston Hall

 

This time, I had a few buildings to photograph for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, starting with the Grade II Listed Whiston Hall - a manor house with an early C16 core, encased and extended in the early C17, with further extensions in the C18. It is now a private nursing home and I was only able to take a few general photos at a distance, without getting a view of its principal elevation. 

 

The former stable and granary at Whiston Hall

 

The late C17 stable and granary, belonging to the hall, are also Grade II listed and are also built out of the locally quarried Rotherham Red sandstone. I just took a single record photograph and went to have a look at Whiston Manorial Barn, whose oldest parts are thought to date to the C13. 

 

Views of Whiston Manorial Barn

 

Having a quick look at the masonry on its north side, I was interested to see that the Rotherham Red sandstone used here possesses considerable colour variation, with deep red/plum coloured stone being mixed with yellowish and variegated varieties, as I had seen a few days earlier on Whitehill Lane in Brinsworth. 

 

Flaggy Rotherham Red sandstone on Chaff Lane

 

Continuing along Chaff Lane, I had another look at the outcrop of flaggy Rotherham Red sandstone, which is similar to that seen earlier in the excavation at the Newman School and I obtained a small sample for my rock collection with my Estwing hammer. 

 

Sandstone from Chaff Lane (coin = 22 mm diameter)

Making my way to Well Lane, I found a public footpath that took me up the steep slope from Whiston Brook to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, where I stopped briefly to photograph Lychgate Hall, the former Church Institute (1913). 

 

Lychgate Hall

 

Wandering around St. Mary Magdalene’s churchyard, I soon found the Grade II Listed headstone to Rebekah Cutt (c.1736), which the Historic England listing describes as a “thick slab with shaped head and inscription beneath relief carvings of knotted swags and skull and cross bones and flanked by Doric pilasters surmounted by vases.” 

 

The Grade II Listed headstone to Rebekah Cutt

I then had a quick look around the churchyard to see if I could find any Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones. Although I didn’t find the headstone of Corporal Robert Henry Foers of the Australian Infantry, I found the machine inscribed Botticino marble headstone of Private R. Cousins of the Corps of Military Police. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private R. Cousins

I also came across the Portland stone headstone of Private R. James of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, whose regimental crest depicts a Bengal tiger carved into an exploding hand grenade, which is like the very plain motif used by the Grenadier Guards. 

 

A detail of the headstone of Private R. James

 

Taking advantage of the afternoon sunshine, I had wander around the church and took a couple of photos of the excellent grotesques on either side of the porch, as well as several small ‘honest repairs’ - first advocated by SPAB - using stone slips and sand and cement instead of new stone. 

 

Grotesques at St. Mary's church

Although I had been there a couple of times before, I decided to go and have another look at the old Rotherham Red sandstone quarry, which has been excavated into the hillside to the south of Whiston Brook and was probably the source of stone for the mediaeval church. 

 

The old quarry above Whiston Brook

 

The sandstone comprises massive beds in the lower part of the exposure but, as also seen at Canklow Woods, it passes up wards into much thinner beds, where shallow angle cross-bedding is highlighted by differential weathering. 

 

Low angle cross-bedding and differential weathering

The sample that I obtained is medium grained and uniformly red/brown in colour, which is quite typical of the Rotherham Red sandstone that has been used in the church, with there being no obvious signs of yellow/red variegation that can often be seen in boundary walls. 

 

Sandstone from Whiston quarry (coin = 22 mm diameter)

 

I finished my very brief walk around Whiston by following another path down to Whiston Brook, where I came across a plaque erected by Whiston History Society at the Parish Pound, which is an enclosure for stray animals.

 

The Parish Pound

 

Moorgate and Bawtry Road

 

Excavated Rotherham Red sandstone at the Newman School

The first week of August 2022 proved to be geologically very interesting, with trips undertaken to see the Wickersley Rock at Wickersley and Bramley, the Mexborough Rock at Brinsworth and the Loxley Edge Rock and the Rough Rock at Hagg Stones and Oughtibridge respectively.

 

Listed buildings at Moorgate and Whiston requiring photos

 

For my next afternoon out, my plan was to go into Rotherham again to photograph ten listed buildings in the area around Moorgate and Whiston, which I had identified through the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. 

 

Thomas Rotherham College

 

My first stop was Thomas Rotherham College (1876), designed by W.G. Habershon and A.R. Pite of London and built by the contractor L.B. Moore of Bedford with rock-faced Rotherham Red sandstone walling and Jurassic oolitic limestone dressings. 

 

Bath stone coping stones at Thomas Rotherham College

 

Some of this limestone, which I think is 'Bath stone', appeared in the boundary wall to Boston Castle and the solitary specimen of a star shaped Pentacrinites crinoid ossicle was just one of very many interesting stone related features used by the Victorians to decorate Boston Park. Rotherham MBC have since just neglected this wonderful park and so many features have been removed, vandalised or become so densely overgrown thgat they are no longer visible. 

 

A pier constructed with sandstone and limestone

After photographing the milepost opposite Moorgate Grove, I walked at a leisurely pace down the shady side of Moorgate Road until I reached the main entrance to Rotherham General Hospital, where I went to find the next building on my list, Oakwood Hall (1856-59). 

 

Moorgate Hall

Now an administrative building for Rotherham Health Authority, it was originally built in the Neoclassical style for James Yates, a great nephew of Samuel Walker I, who eventually took over the Walker family’s foundry business and expanded its range of cast and forged iron products. 

 

Moorgate Hall

Interestingly, like Clifton House (1783), Thundercliffe Grange (1776-85), Morthen Hall (early C18) and Swinden House (c.1880), the house is not built in Rotherham Red sandstone, but a light brown sandstone – probably from one of the formations such as the Parkgate Rock or the Silkstone Rock to the north of Rotherham. Although used for many churches, a few civic buildings and several villas on Moorgate, Rotherham Red sandstone is not a first rate building stone and architects seemed not to favour this material for their country houses. 

 

A pile of excavated Rotherham Red sandstone at the Newman School

 

Continuing down Moorgate Road past the milestone in front of No. 229, I turned onto East Bawtry Road, where I wanted to see if I could get near enough to the Newman School (1939) to photograph it. Seeing that the gates were open and contractors were on site, I went to investigate and was paricularly interested to see a large waste pile of Rotherham Red sandstone. 

 

Massive Rotherham Red sandstone

 

Walking up to the school, I discovered that the headmaster was on site and, having explained my interest in photographing the school and that I was also a geologist, I was given permission to look at the area where the Rotherham Red sandstone was being excavated to enable the construction of a new extension.

 

Flaggy Rotherham Red sandstone

Although I was standing at quite a distance from the excavated rock faces, from my photographs that I took using the zoom lens on my Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II camera, I can see that the lower part of the exposure - approximately 4 ½ metres high - is composed of massive sandstone but the upper section is very flaggy. 

 

Sandstone from the Newman School  (coin = 22 mm diameter)

Taking advantage of my permission to photograph the rear elevation of the school, I took advantage of my proximity to the rock waste tip to take a sample, before leaving the site and heading back to West Bawtry Road, where another milepost is set against a large retaining wall built in a Triassic red sandstone of unknown provenance.  

A milestone on West Bawtry Road

Geology Along the River Don

 

Rough Rock on the River Don at Oughtibridge

After spending a day looking around Worrall, investigating the geology of Hagg Stones and photographing historic architecture in Oughtbridge, I finished off my day by taking a walk along the bank of the River Don, from Oughtibridge to Birley Wood. 

 

The River Don at Oughtibridge

 

Taking the footpath from Station Road, which follows the Upper Don Trail on the east bank of the River Don, I continued past the cricket ground until I reached an old weir. The 1894 Ordnance Survey map marked this as being connected to a large goit that ran south-east for about 600 metres to the former Middlewood Rolling Mills, which has since been filled in. 

 

A weir on the River Don at Oughtibridge

Continuing south along the river bank for a short distance, I was very interested to discover a few small outcrops of a thinly bedded flaggy sandstone, approximately 2 metres thick, which contained some irregular massive beds. 

 

An exposure of the Rough Rock

 

The sample of fine/medium grained sandstone that I took with my Estwing hammer is light brown/grey in colour, with iron banding and sporadic flakes of muscovite mica. As such, it looks no different to several other samples of sandstone that I have obtained from various strata in the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation. 

 

Samples of Rough Rock

 

Neither the British Geological Survey online 1:50,000 map or GeoIndex Onshore map viewer enable me to pinpoint the rock formation in question, but given that the outcrop is on the edge of the floodplain of the River Don, it looks likely that this belongs to the Rough Rock and not the Crawshaw Sandstone. 

 

The principal sandstone formations around Oughtibridge

 

On the opposite west bank, I was rather intrigued to see a section of retaining wall along the water’s edge, where thick ochreous deposits appear to be flowing from the river embankment. In my experience, these are usually associated with the bacterial breakdown of pyrite in exposed river bank coal seams or the flow of such deposits from shallow coal mines along adits into rivers and streams or rivers. 

 

Ochreous deposits along the bank of the River Don

Although no coal seams are specifically marked on the geological map, the Pot Clay Coal seam does sometimes occur in the region between the Rough Rock and the Subcrenatum (Pot Coal) Marine Band. I could only see from a distance on the wast bank of the river but, at the same level as the ochreous deposits, black deposits that look suspiciously like coal can be seen falling from large voids in the retaining wall.

 

A possible exposure of the Pot Clay Coal

 

Continuing downstream, the retaining wall disappears and, where the bank has been eroded, a thick deposit of water worn boulders are exposed, which presumably records a previous position of the main river channel. 

 

A riverbank deposit of water worn boulders

 

Whilst the potential identification of the Pot Clay Coal seam was quite speculative, the underlying Rough Rock is exposed in the streambed and the west river bank a little further downstream. Unlike the coarse pebbly varieties seen in West Yorkshire, the Rough Rock found in the Sheffield district is mainly a flaggy variety – as I had seen in Whinfell Quarry Garden and along Limb Brook. 

 

A riverbank exposure of the Rough Rock

 

Carrying on further downstream, I got talking to a fisherman who was interested in my Estwing hammer. Although I can’t ever recall seeing him in the village, he told me that he also lived in Treeton and often came up to this to part of Sheffield to fish for grayling, which he would keep in rock pools that he made with a circle of boulders. 

 

The riverbed of the River Don

Having had a good day out, I finished my day by walking down the river into Beeley Wood, where various ganister quarries and mines once operated, which would supply the Oughtibridge Silica Firebrick Company, and then past the remains of a dismantled weir. 

 

Part of a dismantled weir

 

I eventually found the footbridge over the River Don at Abbey Forge Products, which would take me to the Middlewood Road. From here, I went photograph the gate piers to Middlewood Hall and a milepost for the British Listed Buildings website, before walking back down to the Middlewood Park and Ride – to catch a tram back to Sheffield.

 

A view north along the River Don

 

Historic Architecture in Oughtibridge

 

A detail of Oughtibridge House

Leaving Hagg Stones at the west end, I immediately came across an old trough, which is presumably fed by a spring that emerges at the junction of the escarpment of Crawshaw Sandstone that runs above the line of Boggard Lane. 

 

A trough at Boggard Lane

 

Continuing along Boggard Lane to Birtin Cemetery, I had a quick wander around to find the three Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones and obtained good views north to the valley formed by the Coumes Brook, which has cut down through the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation strata to expose the Rough Rock. 

 

A view of Burton House Farmhouse from Birtin Cemetery

From the boundary wall, I could see the Grade II Listed Burton House Farmhouse (1685) on Burton Lane, which was the first of a handful of buildings in Oughtibridge to photograph for the British Listed Buildings website Photo Challenge on the day.

 

Burton House Farmhouse

 

Walking down Burton Lane from Birtin Cemetery, I did not get close enough to be able to determine the texture and other characteristics of the sandstone. As possible sources of the sandstone used, the 1885 Ordnance Survey (OS) map marks a small quarry on the Crawshaw Sandstone, less than 100 metres to the north, with the much larger Hagg Stones quarry being 400 metres to the south-east. 

 

Cottages on Church Street

Continuing for 500 metres down Burton Lane, passing only C20 buildings on the way, and on to Church Street, I stopped briefly to photograph a row of cottages and substantial terraced houses to the north and south sides of Church Street, both of which first appear on the 1894 OS map. 

 

Terraced houses on Church Street

The cottages were too far away from the footpath to see the stonework and the sandstone masonry to the larger terrace house was quite blackened, preventing me from making much of a judgement on the provenance of the stone, but it is very probable that the stone is Loxley Edge Rock from either the Hagg Stones or Middleton quarries. 

 

The Church of the Ascension

 

I next came the Church of the Ascension (1842) and, before having a quick look at its exterior, I went to have a look at the buildings in its vicinity, including the parsonage, which is marked on the 1855 OS map and is presumably of a similar age, and the old school. 

 

The parsonage and old school

 

I didn’t get near enough to determine its texture, but I saw enough rusty brown colour variation to make me think that these were just further examples of the Loxley Edge Rock. Moving back down to the church, I took a few photographs of its exterior and didn’t notice anything to make me think that this stone was not used for the walling stone here too. 

 

Views of the Church of the Ascension

 

Looking closely at the Romanesque style west door, however, I immediately noticed that this is made of a very coarse gritstone, with the cushion capitals and surrounding blocks containing distinct pebble bands, which immediately made me think of the Chatsworth Grit. 

 

Pebbly bands in the sandstone used for the cushion capitals

 

Continuing down Church Street, I passed a variety of C19 buildings that had existed since the 1855 map was published, all of which seem to be built out of the same stone, but I only took a few general record photographs from a distance. 

 

Various historic buildings on Church Street

 

I had passed through Oughtibridge a few times, when driving my MG Midget from High Green via Grenoside on my way to Bradfield and the moorlands in the north-western extremities of Sheffield. It struck me as being a very dark and dirty place, but it has completely changed character and, according to one of the residents that I talked to, is now one of the most desirable areas in Sheffield to live. 

 

Oughtibridge House

Oughtibridge House is an early Victorian house that seems to have recently benefitted from stone cleaning, which provides a good opportunity to clearly see the colour and textural variations in what I presume to another example of the Loxley Edge Rock. 

 

The Cock Inn on Bridge Hill

 

The afternoon sunshine half tempted me to sit down at the Cock Inn on Bridge Hill for half an hour but, with plenty of places still to visit on my day out, I instead crossed the River Don and headed up Station Lane to photograph the Grade II Listed former Oughtibridge Station (c.1845-1851). 

 

The old station

I was unable to get access to Oughtibridge Hall and its outbuildings and, retracing my steps back to the river, I made my way up to the Grade II Listed water powered Oughtibridge Forge (1792), which has now been converted into a residential building at the edge of a new housing estate.

 

Oughtibridge Forge