From Smallage Farm to Treeton

 

A crest at Smallage Farm

On leaving Falconer Wood, during my last COVID-19 Lockdown walk in April 2020, I headed up the escarpment of Treeton Rock to Smallage Farm, where a date of 1866 is marked on an ornately carved keystone to an arched doorway at the side of the road.

 

Rotherham Red sandstone at Smallage Farm

The walling here, and the Rotherham Red sandstone farm buildings that I could see from the road, were the only points of interest here and, heading back down Smallage Lane towards Fence, I found a vantage point where I could see the surrounding landscape.

 

A view towards Treeton Wood

 

To the north, I could see Treeton Wood and Treeton Grange in the distance and, to the north-west, the Waverley Estate, the Advanced Manufacturing Park and 70 Acre Hill in the mid-distance now occupy a vast swathe of land – from Fence to Tinsley – where there were once various coal mines.

 

A view towards the Waverley Estate and 70 Acre Hill

Carrying on down Smallage Lane to the foot of the escarpment, I could only get a glimpse of Falconer Farm through the woodland but there is a distinct change in slope to an area of relatively level land here, with a small stream marked on the Ordnance Survey map.

 

A view of Falconer Farm

Looking to the south, the electricity pylons on the high ground provide useful reference points and, when referring to the 1:50,000 scale British Geological Survey map, the high ground here is seen to be underlain by a sandstone that is named the ‘Oaks Rock’.

 

An escarpment of Oaks Rock

This may not correspond with the well developed Oaks Rock in the Barnsley district, as I had seen at Wath-upon-Dearne but this, together with an unnamed sandstone that lies beneath it, forms much of the high ground that runs towards Swallownest.

 

The geology of the area around Falconer Wood

The geological map shows that the road from Smallage Farm to Fence also crosses two marine bands - the Mansfield Marine Band and the Clowne Marine Band – that record the incursion of the sea over the low lying coastal plains and delta system in which the Coal Measures strata were deposited, as well as a couple of coal seams.

 

A generalized section of the Oaks Rock and associated strata

A generalized vertical section shows that these strata can vary in thickness and lateral extent and, in places, they are sometimes missing. During the excavation of pit shafts, the drilling of exploratory boreholes and other surveys of the coal mines, their position would have been calculated but none of them make any kind of impression on the topography.

 

A concrete post at Falconer Farm

Stopping only to look at the inscribed concrete post at the entrance of Falconer Farm and the ‘granitic’ road setts used in the gateposts, I continued down Smallage Lane, where the hedgerows prevented me from surveying the landscape to either side, and finally arrived at Fence.

 

Road setts used in a gate post

In the 1840’s, before the building of the North Midland Railway, Fence Colliery was sunk here and the short terraces of houses on Falconer Lane, which were erected for its workers at the turn of the C20, are the last remaining evidence of it.

 

Terraced houses in Fence

From here, I took a few photographs of the escarpment that I had walked along from Hail Mary Hill and then carried on back to Treeton along the path by Treeton Dyke, before taking the first available path back into Hail Hill Mary Wood.

 

A view of the escarpment

Connecting with the main path through the wood, which in places is lined by an avenue of mature beech trees that are covered with graffiti carved into the bark, I followed the escarpment back to the lowland area at the back of Hail Mary Hill.

 

Beech trees in Hail Hill Mary Wood

To finish my walk, I then headed north back up to the escarpment of Treeton Rock, to see if there were any signs of the old sandstone quarry here, but finding nothing I quickly made my way back along the path to Treeton.

 

A circular walk from Treeton to Smallage Farm

Hail Mary Hill Wood & Falconer Wood

A view towards Smallage Farm

Following on from my exploration of Treeton Wood, during the COVID-19 Lockdown in April 2020, my investigation of the geology and geomorphology around Treeton continued with a walk along the escarpment of Treeton Rock from Hail Mary Hill to Smallage Farm.

A simplified geology map of the area around Hail Mary Hill

Starting at Wood Lane, I carried on out of the village and up the hill to Treeton Grange and, taking the first marked path into Treeton Wood, quickly walked down to the stream where I gathered some more wild garlic before heading across the field to Hail Hill Mary Wood.

 

A view of the dip slope on the walk up Hail Mary Hill

The main path makes its way around a steep sided angular spur of Treeton Rock that forms Hail Mary Hill, but I instead headed up a path that runs up alongside the ploughed field. From here, there are good views of the dip slope between Treeton Wood and Hail Hill Mary Wood.

 

A mining bee

There is a known Mesolithic site at the summit of Hail Mary Hill, where flint and chert tools were fashioned but, on this occasion, I was more interested in the mining bees that were emerging from many holes in the path that runs across the clearance at the top of the woods here.

 

A view of the summit of Hail Mary Hill

I don’t know much about stone age sites and, the next time I have a walk here, I would like to be accompanied by someone who knows the archaeology of the area well; however, I just stayed long enough to photograph the burned area of woodland on the edge of the escarpment of Treeton Rock.

 

A view towards Treeton Grange

Continuing along the path that runs along the edge of the escarpment, I didn’t see any signs of hard rock exposures in the steeply falling ground to the west and, stopping only to photograph the landscape towards Treeton Grange and the bluebells, I carried on to Falconer Wood.

 

Bluebells

For some distance, the path follows the edge of the wood - from which views down the dip slope towards Treeton Wood can be seen - and then rises noticeably, before cutting obliquely down the escarpment to join the main path through the woods.

 

An escarpment in Falconer Wood

Passing an electricity pylon, which makes an easily distinguishable landmark for further investigation of the area on an Ordnance Survey map, I then walked through an area of recently disturbed ground before arriving at Smallage Lane.

 

An electricity pylon in Falconer Wood

As a geologist, my walk had taught me a little more about ‘reading’ various maps map and the scarp and vale topography formed by the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation; however, the bedrock here is covered with a very thick blanket of soil that is largely formed by the falling of leaves over an extended period of time.

 

A map of the area around Hail Mary Hill Wood

Treeton Wood - Part 2

 

Wild garlic in Treeton Wood

Continuing with my exploration of Treeton Wood during the Covid-19 Lockdown, I followed the path along its eastern edge before taking a quick diversion along an unmarked path that passes over the adjacent ploughed field, to take a few photographs of the landscape from here.

A view towards Ulley

Looking towards Ulley, the red fields on the Mexborough Rock in the distance contrast strongly with the soil on which I was standing, where innumerable small pieces of fine grained, light brown sandstone are found on the surface.

Rock fragments in the soil

Making my way down the steep slope here, I came across a small stream, which springs just beyond Treeton Wood and marks the boundary between Treeton Wood and the agricultural land that runs up to the back of Falconer Wood and Hail Mary Hill Wood to the south.

Blocks of sandstone in the stream bed

With steeply sloping ground above me to the right, I followed it downstream and, for part of its upper course, it cuts a steep v-shaped profile and its bed is occasionally littered with small pieces of laminated sandstone/siltstone; however, I didn’t see anything other than mudstone that had weathered to yellowish clay in its stream banks.

Weathered mudstone in the stream bank

Further downstream, in places there is no well defined channel and areas of relatively flat, periodically flooded land are found, where wild garlic grows in abundance, and after gathering some of this to use for cooking later, I carried on down to the north-west corner of Treeton Wood.

Erosion by a temporary stream channel

Leaving the wood, I then took a few photographs of the landscape around me before following the path to Hail Hill Mary Wood, which I am told often gets very muddy. The stream is culverted here but it soon reappears at the edge of this wood, before flowing down to Treeton Dyke.

The geology around treeton Wood

Today, this stream forms a very minor watercourse but, looking at an Ordnance Survey map and a geological map, it occupies a distinct geographical feature that cuts through the escarpment of Treeton Rock and which is marked as being full of alluvium – evidence of the erosion and deposition that has taken place here for very many years.

A view of Treeton Wood and Hail Mary Hill Wood

Stopping only to take note of the steeply rising ground that runs up to the summit of Hail Mary Hill, I followed the track that passes the new housing estate back to Treeton, where I looked back over some of the land that I had explored during my circular walk.

A walk around Treeton Wood

 

Treeton Wood - Part 1

Bluebells in Treeton Wood

As I had expected during my first few walks around Treeton, during the COVID-19 Lockdown, I didn’t find a single rock outcrop but, having walked up and down a few hills and surveyed the landscape around me, I now had a better understanding of the geomorphology and how this relates to the underlying geology.

 

An Ordnance Survey map of the area around Treeton Wood

For my next walk, I decided to go and further explore Treeton Wood which, like Treeton Dyke and the River Rother, is within easy walking distance from the centre of Treeton but I had only visited it once or twice a few years ago.

 

A view from Wood Lane

Starting from St. Helen’s church and continuing along Wood Lane towards Aughton, past the new housing estate at the edge of the village, the land rises up to Treeton Grange. From this stretch of road, a vale of ploughed agricultural land can be seen in the distance – separating Treeton Wood and Hail Mary Hill Wood.

 

A simplified geological map of the area around Treeton

Looking at the Geology of Britain Viewer map, the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation strata here are marked in green (sandstone) and grey (mudstone), with recent alluvial deposits laid down by the River Rother and its tributaries shown in very pale yellow.

 

A view of Hail Mary Hill from Wood Lane

In general, these strata are tilted a few degrees in a north-easterly direction and the weather resistant sandstones form the higher ground, often with distinct escarpments, and the softer rocks form the vales in between.

 

Treeton Wood

Continuing along Wood Lane, past Treeton Grange, I took the second entrance into Treeton Wood and, although this is not obvious when viewing it on Google Map, I soon encountered an escarpment, where some of the slopes are moderately steep.

 

An escarpment in Treeton Wood

 

The path that I took follows the escarpment through the middle of the wood and I didn’t see any rock outcrops, except at one place where a hollow exposes a small section of fine grained sandstone bedrock and the soil horizons above it.

 

Arock exposure in a hollow in Treeton Wood

Various archaeological finds have been made in Treeton Wood, including embankments said to be Romano-British, but I didn't knowingly encounter any of them and, after stopping to photograph some of the bluebells that cover the wood at this time of the year, I briefly explored the open land to the east of the wood.

A view from Treeton Wood towards Ulley

A Walk Around Edwards Meteor Way

 

Efflorescence at St. Helen's church

As briefly described in my introduction to the geology around the village of Treeton, with walks around Treeton Dyke, the River Rother and 70 Acre Hill, much of the surrounding area has been despoiled by the coal mining industry and I still hadn’t seen any exposures of the underlying strata of the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation.

 

A view of the Treeton Colliery tip

I always try and find something that appeals to my interests in “geology” when I go out on my day trips or - as during the COVID-19 Lockdown in April 2020 - taking essential exercise and my next short walk was to further explore the ridge of Mexborough Rock that I can see from my house.

 

 Treeton Colliery tip on the BGS map

 

The lower slopes of the ridge here are covered in landscaped waste from Treeton Colliery, which once occupied the land now covered by the Beaumont Park housing estate and, in memory of the pilot of a Gloster Meteor jet that crashed here in 1954, it has been named Edwards Meteor Way.

 

A view towards Treeton

The area is very popular with dog walkers and, on the only occasion that I had been there to take some photos of Treeton and views towards Handsworth in the west, a local told me that the waste from Treeton Colliery tipped here constitutes red shale.

 

A view towards St. Helen's church

Quickly walking to the top, from the entrance at Windle Court, I didn’t see any signs of red shale anywhere and I only stopped to take a good look at the reddened soil that can be seen on the agricultural land beyond.

 

A view towards Burnt Wood

Wherever the red variety of Mexborough Rock outcrops, its position in the landscape is generally marked by the colour of the soil that lies upon it and, below Burnt Wood, it is very strong. This general colouration of this rock formation and the Spa Fault to the east of is further discussed in the Geological Survey of Britain memoir for the Sheffield region and in a paper by John Hunter in the Mercian Geologist.

 

A view of the reddened soil on Spa Hill

I spent less than 15 minutes here and, on this occasion, the light wasn’t very good for photography and so I carried down another path to the Beaumont Estate and, walking along Front Street back to my house, I popped into St. Helen’s churchyard, which I had not visited since the beginning of the lockdown.

 

St. Helen's church

To my great surprise, the stonework to the porch was covered in efflorescent salts, which I had never seen before in the 4 years that I had been attending the Coffee Mornings here, when I help with the day to day maintenance of the fabric and the churchyard.

 

The porch at St. Helen's church

In the late afternoon, with the sun bringing out the colour of the Rotherham Red sandstone and its contrast with the jambs of the doorway, which are built in Ancaster limestone, an interesting example of a  weathering process was taking place before my eyes.

 

A detail of the north jamb

 

The repeated recrystallisation of salts in the micropores of the stone, due to cycles of wetting and drying, causes it to deteriorate and it won’t be that long before the details on the headstops are completely unrecognisable.

 

A weathered headstop

Several years ago, I noticed that cavernous decay affected the masonry inside the porch, and having been in effect a ‘surveyor of the fabric’ in recent years, I have noticed that many blocks of stone that exhibit this type of weathering have deteriorated considerably – especially some of the C15 masonry where tool marks have been scoured out.

 

A pheasant on Wood Lane

Finally arriving back on Wood Lane, although I hadn’t seen any exposures of rock or any buzzards, which can often be seen flying around Spa Hill, I was very surprised to see a pheasant wandering along the other side of the road. I have no idea where it might have come from, but it made me smile at the end of the day.

 

A short walk around Treeton