Bridges and Walls in Sheffield

 

The west elevation of Cadman Road Canal Bridge

The Church of St. John the Evangelist is sited near to the south-west facing escarpment of the Parkgate Rock, which forms a very strong feature as it runs straight up to Manor Top, one of the highest places in south Sheffield.

 

The geology to the east of Sheffield city centre

Looking at the British Geological Survey 1:50,000 map, a dip of 10 degrees to the north-east is marked, which I noted when walking down Bernard Road to a lowland area underlain by geologically younger mudstones and siltstones – at which point I encountered a very impressive piece of Victorian railway engineering. 

 

The railway bridge on Bernard Road

 

At this railway bridge, a thick central core of stonework separates two carriageways and, with retaining walls to each side, supports a lattice of steel beams upon which run the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway line that led to the Sheffield Victoria station and another that connects Rotherham to the Sheffield Midland station.

 

A section of walling at the Bernard Road railway bridge

In the sunshine, the lower part of the first section of stone that I saw appeared very grey, with the less weathered upper part having dark rusty brown colouration in many places. According to Hunt's Mineral Statistics (1858), the nearby Hyde Park quarry was producing 1680 tons of Parkgate Rock per year and the area The hatched marking on the current geological map – denoting infilled land – is quite extensive and it is therefore likely that it has been used here.

 

A retaining wall on Bernard Road

During investigations of Norfolk Park, the Cholera Monument, Park Hill and the railway cuttings at Sheffield Midland railway station, I have encountered various examples of the Silkstone Rock, some of which is very muddy looking as seen in the Shrewsbury Hospital Almshouses and its contemporary lodges.

 

A retaining wall on Bernard Road

 
2760 tons of Silkstone Rock were being produced at the Claywood quarries, with one marketed as 'bluestone' and, although operated by different quarrymen, the freeholder of both this and Hyde Park quarry was the Duke of Norfolk and he may have had some influence on the sandstones that was used for the railway bridge and adjoing retaining walls.

 

The location of Hyde Park quarry on the 1855 Ordnance Survey map

 
As with the Chatsworth Grit, the Crawshaw Sandstone and the Loxley Edge Rock in the north-west part of Sheffield, it is not easy to tell the difference between the Parkgate Rock and the Silkstone Rock and the provenance of this stone is still a bit of a mystery to me.

 

The Effingham Road railway bridge

 
Continuing my walk, I stopped very briefly to take a single record photograph of the Effingham Road railway bridge, which carries the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway branch line to the Sheffield Midland railway station, which opened in 1870.

 

The west elevation of the Cadman Street Canal Bridge

 
My next stop was the Grade II Listed Cadman Street Canal Bridge (1819), off Sussex Street, which spans the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal and was probably designed by William Chapman – the canal engineer for the Sheffield Canal Company.

 

The east elevation of the Cadman Street Canal Bridge

 
Except for the brick parapet wall, it is essentially built with what looks to be like another local Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation (PLCMF) sandstone, with moderate iron staining, but I could again not assign a provenance to this sandstone.

 

The perimeter wall to the old gas works on Sussex Street

 
Returning to Sussex Street, I then encountered a very large boundary wall at the site of the recently demolished disused gasometer, which is built with yet another PLCMF sandstone that looks similar to the one used for the railway engineering works on Bernard Road.

 

The perimeter wall to the old gas works on Effingham Street

 
At Effingham Street, there is another section of the perimeter wall to the old gas works, built with similar looking PLCMF sandstone, which has a light muddy grey colour to the body of the stone, light brown on the surface and with concentrations of iron oxides/hydroxides.

 

A detail of the perimeter wall on Effingham Street

 

An Exploration of Hyde Park in Sheffield

 

The Church of St. John the Evangelist

My walk from Grenoside to Hillsborough, to investigate the Greenmoor Rock at Birley Edge, the Kilner Way Retail Park and the Upper Don Trail and to photograph historic architecture for the British Listed Buildings website on the way, took over 4 hours and involved a walk of nearly 12 km. 

 

Listed buildings in the industrial east end of Sheffield

For my next outing, I decided to spend an afternoon exploring the old industrial part of Sheffield around the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal and the River Don – a part of the city that I had never visited before – with the primary objective being to photograph its listed buildings. 

 

A mixed meal at the Reggae Kitchen

Alighting from the No. 73 bus at the City Road/St. Aidan's Road stop, I firstly walked down to the Reggae Kitchen, where I thoroughly enjoyed one of their mixed meals – on this occasion taking the time to sit down at their table. 

 

A boundary wall on City Road

Continuing down City Road past mainly brick built terraced houses to Bernard Street, I stopped briefly to look at a boundary wall, where the sandstone has a high ironstone content and which I have presumed to be from the Parkgate Rock, which was once obtained from the Hyde Park quarries on Skye Edge. 

 

The Church of St. John the Evangelist

 

Arriving at Bernard Street, I soon encountered the first building on my list to photograph, the Church of St. John the Evangelist (1838), by M.E. Hadfield, in a Gothic Revival style, with alterations c1890 by E.M. Gibbs – architects whose works I had become familiar with, when exploring other parts of Sheffield. 

The Park Hill war memorial

On the approach to the church, I stopped to take a general photograph of the unlisted polished Cornish granite Park Hill war memorial, which is in the form of a wheel cross, and the inscription on its east side, where the alkali feldspar phenocrysts - a characteristic of the Cornish and Devon granites - are clearly visible. 

 

A detail of the Park Hill war memorial

The church was not open and there is very little ornament on the exterior, but I had a close look at its west end, where the doorway has been designed in a Romanesque style, with dog tooth ornament to the arch and cushion capitals to the shafts. 

 

The west door of the Church of St. John the Evangelist

From a distance, although slightly dirty, the generally grey coloured patina of the sandstone, with some orange variations, suggested to me that this is probably another example of very coarse grained Chatsworth Grit. 

 

A view of the sandstone masonry

Looking more closely at the sandstone, it is indeed very coarse grained with a few little fingernail sized pebbles scattered in the stone, but there are no obvious distinct pebbly beds. As I had discovered at the East Lodge at Hillsborough Park a few days earlier, the very wild orange variation does also appear in the Loxley Edge Rock, which can be very similar to the Chatsworth Grit.

 

A detail of the sandstone masonry

Having had a good look at the west front, I had a quick wander around the old churchyard to take a few general record photographs of the various elevations, which would be suitable for adding to the British Listed Buildings website entry for the church. 

 

A view of the Church of St. John the Evangelist

 

I then set off down to Cricket Inn Road, to start my exploration of Sheffield’s industrial east end, beyond Sheffield Parkway, but firstly stopped to have a quick look at the sculpture by Steve Roche, which has been set next to the footpath. 

 

A sculpture on Cricket Inn Road by Steve Roche

 

The Upper Don Trail and Hillsborough

 

Burrowlee House

Leaving the Kilner Way Retail Park, I carried on down Halifax Road towards Hillsborough and then turned off at Herries Road, along which I continued until I reached the River Don and the Grade II Listed rock faced railway viaduct. 

 

The Herries Road railway viaduct

This was built in 1845 for the Sheffield, Ashton under Lyne and Manchester Railway Co. to a design by Joseph Locke, the eminent railway engineer who I had only become aware of a couple of weeks earlier, when visiting Locke Park in Barnsley.

 

The Greenmoor Rock on the Upper Don Trail

I only took a few photos for the British Listed Buildings website at a distance and joined the Upper Don Trail, from which I hoped to get a close look at the outcrops of Greenmoor Rock that I had seen from Hillsborough Park the previous summer. 

A detail of the Greenmoor Rock

Scrambling up the slope from the riverside path to the fenced off railway cutting, most of the exposure is mudstone, where I couldn’t distinguish any individual beds, but in places the upper section of the escarpment revealed sections of quite massive Greenmoor Rock, which needed my zoom lens to photograph. 

 

Greenmoor Rock in the upper section of the escarpment

Continuing my walk alongside the fence for a few hundred metres, making observations of the Greenmoor Rock where I could see it, I soon arrived at Wardsend Cemetery and carried on down the public footpath to the River Don, without making any attempt to explore it. 

 

Wardsend Cemetery

I then made my way down to the Penistone Road, where I took a few photos of the eastern boundary wall of Hillsborough Barracks, which is made of a massive grey/orange coloured sandstone which, as I had noticed during my investigation a few days earlier, contrasts with the uniformly yellow sandstone used for the barracks buildings. 

 

The perimeter wall at Hillsborough Barracks

My next stop, as I headed north towards Hillsborough Park, was Burrowlee House (1711), which was built for Thomas and Elizabeth Steade and has been altered and extended in the mid and late C19 and the C20; however, I was only able to view it from the street and did not have an opportunity to examine its stonework. 

 

Burrowlee House

Entering Hillsborough Park, having previously been refused permission to enter these gates by a steward during the Tramlines Festival, I photographed the Grade II Listed East Lodge and the separately listed gateway and boundary wall, which were built in the early C19. 

 

The East Lodge and gateway

 

A very coarse grained sandstone, with quite wild orange/brown colour variation, has been used here, but I didn’t examine it closely; however, I didn’t notice any well rounded pebbles that are usually seen in the Chatsworth Grit and it reminds me of the sandstone used for the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, which is considered to be the Loxley Edge Rock. 

 

A detail of the sandstone at East Lodge

From here I proceeded to the coach house and stable to Hillsborough Hall, which had been covered in scaffold and protected by heras fencing during my previous visit but, with the restoration work since completed, it is now open as the Depot Bakery.

 

The coach house to Hillsborough Hall

Moving round to its east elevation, the distinct yellow colouration of the sandstone and the cross-bedding made me think that this and the former Hillsborough Hall, also built by the Steade family, were further examples of Grenoside Sandstone, which I had seen in numerous buildings at Grenoside, Birley Edge and Birley Carr. 

 

The west elevation of Hillsborough Hall

 

Sandstone at the Kilner Way Retail Park

 

Greenmoor Rock at the Kilner Way Retail Park

During my brief investigation of Birley Carr and Wadsley Bridge, I went to have a quick look at an old quarry in the Greenmoor Rock that I first noticed nearly 40 years ago, when travelling on the bus between Sheffield and High Green, where I lived at the time. 

 

The outcrop of the Greenmoor Rock in and around Wadsley Bridge

From the Halifax Road, all I could see were the thick beds of sandstone, which I had presumed were used for building stone, but I was working as a trainee general practice surveyor for the District Valuer/Valuation Office and I didn’t take much interest in Sheffield’s geology at the time. 

 

Wadsley Bridge Brickworks on the 1906 Ordnance Survey map

 

The Greenmoor Rock, which is best known for its high quality paving at Green Moor and for high quality headstones and monuments at Brincliffe Edge, is actually extremely variable and in places this formation contains a high proportion of mudstone and shale, which has been exploited along with the underlying strata for making bricks. 

 

Greenmoor Rock at the Kilner Way Retail Park

 

The brickworks at Wadsley Bridge was opened uphill of the railway bridge, between the publication of the 1894 and 1906 editions of the Ordnance Survey maps, but vegetation and the development of the Kilner Way Retail Park has obscured the views from the Halifax Road and I had to walk to the far end of it to see the rock exposures. 

 

Greenmoor Rock at the Kilner Way Retail Park

Compared to the former Woodside Brickworks on Chesterfield Road, there is a considerably greater thickness of sandstone in this section of the Greenmoor Rock, which was probably exploited for building or paving stone, but the quarry face is fenced off and I could only take photos using the zoom lens on my Canon Powershot G7X Mark II camera.

 

A detail of the Greenmoor Rock

 

Having photographed the exposures of Geenmoor Rock, I headed back towards Halifax Road and was interested in the sandstone that has been used for the paving at the retail park. Its uniform yellow colour reminded me of the Grenoside Sandstone that I had seen earlier on my walk, but I am not aware of any instances of this rock formation being used in this way.

 

 Sandstone paving at the Kilner Way Retail Park

The retail park was redeveloped in 2010, but in very many places the stone has shown marked deterioration and in places forms a severe trip hazard, with delamination of very thin beds of sandstone from the surface revealing ripple marks. 

 

Ripple marks exposed by delamination of the sandstone paving

Although the high quality paving from the local Greenmoor Rock has long been unavailable, it is still produced near Shepley and high quality Coal Measures sandstone is still widely available from West Yorkshire and Lancashire, as well as the Rough Rock from Huddersfield, which has been widely used as paving for the Heart of the City developments in Sheffield. 

 

Advanced weathering of the paving

Using my fingers, I obtained a sample of thinly laminated light muddy brown coloured stone that had become detached, which is very fine grained and, when viewed with a hand lens, has tiny flakes of white mica scattered on the bedding plane.

 

A sample of sandstone paving at the Kilner Way Retail Park

 

Birley Carr and Wadsley Bridge

 

A detail of the Centenary Chapel on Halifax Road

Having had a quick wander around Birley Edge, to photograph its historic buildings for the British Listed Buildings website, I returned to the Greenmoor Rock escarpment and carried on down the public footpath to Back Edge. 

 

A view north from Back Edge

Leaving the escarpment, I went to find The Orchard on Fox Hill Crescent and then stopped to look at the Birley Heights housing development, where I was very surprised to see that a high retaining wall had been been built with gabions, whose strength and stability are dependent on the durability of the wire used to make them. 

 

Gabions used for a retaining wall at Birley Heights

Continuing down Fox Hill Crescent, I stopped briefly to look at a small development of one and two storied modern apartments, which are partly faced not with brick – as would probably have been expected – but with an Upper Carboniferous sandstone of unknown provenance. 

 

An apartment block faced with Upper Carboniferous sandstone

 

At Fox Hill Road, I firstly photographed the Grade II Listed sewer gas lamp, very many of which are still preserved in Sheffield, before heading down the hill towards Wadsley Bridge. The suburb of Birley Carr contains a core of late Victorian terraced houses, which are presumably built with the local Grenoside Sandstone, with the former Mount Zion Methodist Chapel (1877) being the most substantial stone building that I saw. 

 

The former Mount Zion Methodist Chapel

 

The masonry is very blackened in places, but there is enough fresh surfaces of sandstone exposed to reveal that it is cross-bedded and uniformly yellow in colour, which is characteristic of the Grenoside Sandstone that I had seen earlier in my walk at Grenoside. 

 

The former Mount Zion Methodist Chapel

Further down Fox Hill Road, there are more later Victorian terraced houses, where the masonry is also very blackened and, continuing down Parson Cross Road, I photographed a couple of recently cleaned houses. One of these is built with yellow sandstone, but the stone in the other house is much paler in colour, which from a distance looks more like the Crawshaw Sandstone. 

 

Terraced houses on Parson Cross Road

 

Reaching Halifax Road, I turned left and headed up to the Grade II Listed Hannah Rawson School (1829), now the Parsons Cross Church of England Primary School, where I asked permission to photograph its exterior. 

 

The Hannah Rawson School

I only took a few general record photos of the building, without studying the stonework closely, but when zooming into the plaque that records the endowment by Hannah Rawson, I could see that its uniform yellow colour and cross-bedding indicates another example of the Grenoside Sandstone. 

 

The plaque on the Hannah Rawson School

 

After having a quick look at the exposure of the Greenmoor Rock at Kilner Way Retail Park, which I shall describe later, I set off down the Halifax Road towards Hillsborough and stopped to photograph the Wadsley Bridge war memorial, which is made with Cornish granite in the form of a wheel cross and is surprisingly not a listed structure. 

 

Wadsley Bridge war memorial

Behind the war memorial is the former Centenary Chapel (1839), which has been fairly recently cleaned to reveal a very coarse grained gritstone, with grey to orange colour variation, which is probably Chatsworth Grit from the Rivelin Valley.

 

Views of the Centenary Chapel