Terraced Houses on Ecclesall Road

 

Edwardian terraced houses on Ecclesall Road

Following on from visits to Moorgate Cemetery and Boston Park in Rotherham - to prepare for the “Let’s talk about the stones” walk in April - March 2023 started with a trip to Ecclesall in Sheffield, to meet up with Paul and Dave of the Sheffield U3A Geology Group to finalise the field trip itinerary for the rest of 2023. 

 

Locations visited with outcrops of the Greenmoor Rock

Since first undertaking a survey of Green Moor in Barnsley back in 1996, to identify potential RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in South Yorkshire, I have encountered the Greenmoor Rock in many places. Although I have been to Banner Cross, Greystones, Nether Edge and Endcliffe Park a few times, I couldn’t recall seeing any buildings in the area that I thought were obviously built with this sandstone - known in Sheffield as Brincliffe Edge Rock.

 

The brickworks and quarries marked on the 1924 Ordnance Survey map

 

When coming down Ecclesall Road on the bus after a previous meeting at Paul’s house, I was struck by the obvious grey/green colour of the sandstone that has been used for the frontages of the brick built terraced houses, which were erected on its east side in various stages during the very late Victorian to Edwardian periods. 

 

No. 735 Ecclesall Road

 

With a bit of time on hands before my meeting, I got off the bus from Sheffield at the Ecclesall Road/Rustlings Road stop to have a quick look at the terraced houses - Nos. 721-737 - on the east side of the Trinity United Reformed Church, which were built on a site that the 1905 Ordnance Survey map shows as a quarry and first appear on the 1924 edition, which was based on a resurvey of 1914/1915. 

 

Edwardian terraced houses on Ecclesall Road

In 2021, I had spent a good part of the year travelling all over Sheffield to visit the Sheffield Board Schools, combining these with the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, during which I had traversed the major sandstone formations in Sheffield that have been used for building stone. 

 

No. 737 Ecclesall Road

 

Although very few quarries are now visible, the physical characteristics of the principal sandstone formations that outcrop on the west side of Sheffield - the Chatsworth Grit, Crawshaw Sandstone and Loxley Edge Rock – are very different to the Greenmoor Rock, which is thinly bedded, fine grained and particularly suited to paving, headstones, lintels, sills and steps. 

 

No. 739 Ecclesall Road

 

Nos. 739-749, on the west side of Trinity church, were built at a slightly earlier date and first appear on the 1905 map, which was revised from 1901 to 1903. Although more modest in style than the later Edwardian terraced houses, which have two storey bay windows and a gable attic floor, they are built out of a similar green/grey sandstone that has a dull light muddy brown patina. 

 

Nos. 743 and 745 Ecclesall Road

I quickly walked up Ecclesall Road until I reached the Co-Op supermarket, which is built on the site of the former John Gregory brickworks, which opened c.1877 and closed c.1942, but I didn’t have time to look closely at the extensive rock face that can be seen here. 

 

The site of the former John Gregory brickworks

 

Stopping quickly to photograph the fine relief sculptures by Richard Watts at the Church of St. William of York, which I shall describe later, I took a couple of photos of the quarry face seen from a gennel to one of the terraced houses, which first appear on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map. 

 

A view along a gennel on Ecclesall Road

 

An "Omelette" Structure in Boston Park

 

The 'omelette' structure identified by the Sheffield Area Geology Trust

When undertaking initial research into the “Let’s talk about the stones” walk for the Friends of Moorgate Cemetery, I came across a brief news report on the Sheffield Area Geology Trust (SAGT) website, dated 14th January 2023, to say that a very unusual ‘omelette’ structure had been found by members during a survey late in the previous year. 

 

A short article about the 'omelette' structure in Boston Park

 

I had long since detached myself from any formal involvement with geological conservation in Rotherham, because the Rotherham MBC planning section wanted me to continue providing my professional services for free, when they now had a statutory responsibility for this. I wasn't happy with this, especially since Doncaster MBC and the British Geological Survey had arranged for me to be well paid to resurvey the RIGS in Doncaster for the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment, which formed an integral part of the Local Development Framework. 

 

A section of the quarry face with soft sediment deformation structures

A majority decision by the remaining active members of the South Yorkshire RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) Group, now deceased, agreed for it to be absorbed into SAGT and I was briefly a member of their Rotherham Local Geological Sites Panel; however, as the principal surveyor, chairman and publicist for the South Yorkshire RIGS Group, I didn't appreciate being effectively sidelined and I soon lost interest in their activities.

 

A detail of a section with soft sediment deformation structures

 

Nevertheless, as a geologist I was genuinely interested to be informed that these very rare ‘omelette’ and other soft sediment deformation structures had been discovered here. This was believed to be the result of a sudden flood and I went to have a look for myself. 

 

A soft sediment deformation structure

 

The article states that SAGT are trying to determine if there is further evidence for this sudden flood hypothesis and I wanted to pass on some knowledge that might help them with this. Back in 1994, when I first became aware of the RIGS initiative, and later in 1996 while surveying potential RIGS in South Yorkshire, evidence of this was clearly visible behind the bowls pavilion. 

 

Boston Park in 1994 (top) and 1996 (bottom)

Here, in the exposed rock face, in addition to the scattering of clay ironstone nodules, which are common in the Rotherham Red sandstone – a locally distinctive variety of the Mexborough Rock - there is a bed of conglomerate over 20 cm thick that is composed of these rounded nodules and was presumably laid down in a flood event. 

 

Boston Park in 2011

 

Although the old quarry face had started to become quite overgrown in places, the conglomerate was still clearly visible in March 2010 and December 2011 but, during subsequent visits in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2023, this was obscured by vegetation. 

 

Boston Park in 2023

Further indirect evidence of a flood event recorded in the Rotherham Red sandstone at Boston Park is in the slabs of sandstone used to line a walkway, which contain numerous large Carboniferous plant fossils that formed in a log jam. These slabs would not have been suitable for building stone and were set aside, but unfortunately it is not known where in the quarry face these came from. 

 

The walkway with plant fossil bearing slabs

 

As part of my original survey of potential RIGS sites back in 1996, I also saw good exposures of the Mexborough Rock in Darfield Quarry, 13 km to the north of Boston Park, where the formation has a light brown colour that is typical of most Coal Measures sandstones in the region, but also contains a significant contaent of clay ironstone nodules. 

 

An extract from my photographic database

 

Although my photo of it has unfortunately become mislaid in my collection of over 4000 colour transparencies, a conglomeratic bed of similar thickness can be seen in Darfield quarry, which I visited again with my next door neighbour Dan - who played in the quarry as a boy - a couple of months after my last visit to Boston Park. 

 

Darfield quarry in 1996

Having had dealings with the manager of Green Spaces in Rotherham several times over the years, I spoke to him about whether or not it would be possible to clean the section of the quarry face with the exposure of conglomerate. Rotherham MBC have no plans to do this, but it was suggested that SAGT might want to do this themselves

 

A bed of conglomerate at Darfield quarry

Let's Talk About the Stones - Part 2

 

A detail of the Cornish granite used for the headstone of Annie Handley

In preparation for my walk around Moorgate Cemetery in April 2023, which Janet Worrall had given the title “Let’s talk about the stones”, I used the Stroll In The Cemetery guide to track down memorials to John Guest, Richard Chrimes and members of the Beatson/Beatson Clark families. 

 

Memorials to various members of the Habershon family

 

In the Habershon family plot, I found the Italian white marble headstone to John Matthew (d.1894), a sandstone headstone to Alice (d.1918) and a cross to commemorate Matthew Joseph (d.1929), which is made with a grey granite from the Cornubian batholith in south-west England. 

 

The memorial to Harry Crowcroft

 

The memorial to Harry Crowcroft (d.1900) is quite elaborate, with an Italian white Carrara marble angel set on a pedestal that has a polished inscribed shield and oak leaf details that contrast with the adjoining tooled stone. I didn’t get close enough to look at the texture and mineralogy, but it looks too dark to be a Scottish granite and I will have to look at it again another time. 

 

The memorial to members of the Aizlewood family

From a distance, I can tell that the obelisk that commemorates John (d.1907), Sarah (d.1908) and John Arthur (d.1862) Aizlewood is made of the dark pink Peterhead granite, which was commonly used for banks and other prestigious buildings, as well as for memorials. 

 

The memorial to John Barras

 

Rotherham is set upwind of the old steel manufacturing centre along the Lower Don Valley, which stretched all the way from Sheffield, and most of the older memorials in Moorgate Cemetery are blackened by the resultant pollution to various degrees. This makes it difficult to identify the various stones when seen at a distance - for example the monument to John Barras (d.1885). 

 

An inscribed granite panel on the Barras memorial

 

From my my photographs, it looks like the bulk of the memorial is made of blackened massive sandstone, except for the inscribed panel and the urn. Enlarging my photo of the panel, I can see that it is a very pale grey granite with distinct foliation picked out by the alignment of the biotite mica – a feature of both Kemnay and Rubislaw granite. 

 

The headstones of William Pridmore, Joe Smith and Leonard Carrison

 

The headstones to William Pridmore (d.1895), Joe Smith (d.1917) and Leonard Carrison (d.1917) are further examples of just how varied in colour and texture, the granitic rocks used by the memorial masons could be – even before the trade in granite became global. 

 

The headstone of Ada Davis

Moving on to the headstone of Ada Davis (d.1918), the red rather than pink colour of the alkali feldspar made me think that this was perhaps one of the Swedish or Finnish granites that were once imported into Aberdeen for processing, but my detailed photo doesn’t match very well the very many photos of these granites, which are still available and advertised online. 

 

A detail of the red granite used for the Ada Davis headstone

 

The best match that I found was from the British Geological Survey GeoScenic photo archive, where the various Ordovician (450 Ma) Corrennie granite samples have mineralogical and textural characteristics that are similar, despite slightly different amounts of biotite mica. 

 

Specimens of Corrennie granite on the GeoScenic photo archive

 

The monuments to John Evans (d.1881), Sarah Crowther (d.1887) and John Corker (d.1883) have a broadly similar design with a plinth, tapering square section pedestal with a capital topped with an urn. The Evans monument looks like an Aberdeen granite, but the others have a much higher proportion of ferromagnesian minerals than a true granite, which would probably be classified as a gabbro or perhaps a diorite. 

 

The memorials to John Evans, Sarah Crowther and John Corker

 

Looking at more than 110 photographs of Scottish granite specimens on the GeoScenic site, none of them have a high ferromagnesian mineral content and my initial thoughts are that Rustenburg gabbro from South Africa may have been used for one of these, but it really needs an expert in the various stones used in monumental masonry to confirm this. 

 

Memorials to Sarah Williamson and members of the Lee family

 

Of the substantial C20 memorials that I saw, Sarah Williamson (d.1927) looks like a gabbro column, with a capping of grey granite from Cornwall/Devon and William Lee (d.1934) and his family is made of gabbro/dolerite with a capping of Kemnay granite. 

 

Various C21 headstones

 

As a geologist, I never cease to be fascinated by the wide variety of colours and textures that can be seen in the various granites, gneisses and migmatites that are now imported from India, China and Brazil to be used for headstones, but the highlight of this visit to Moorgate Cemetery was the twin headstones to the family of John Hanby.

 

Twin headstones for various members of the Hanby family

 

In the temperate British climate, it has never been a good idea to use marble for external use, because it will react with the carbonic acid in rainwater and this will be exacerbated when there is severe sulphurous atmospheric pollution. This can be seen particularly clearly in the twin Hanby memorials, where the surfaces are so weathered that much of the lead lettering has fallen off.

 

A detail of weathered marble

 

Let's Talk About the Stones - Part 1

 

Let's talk about the stones

After my field trip to Whirlow and Ecclesall Woods with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, following up my visit to the workshop of Steve Roche the previous month, I went with Janet Worrall of the Friends of Moorgate Cemetery to further discuss the possibility of having a sculpture made for Boston Park, using the Rotherham Red sandstone retained from excavtions for the new reservoir.

 

Boston Park and Moorgate Cemetery

 

During this visit, Janet asked me if I was prepared to lead a couple of walks in April, which would involve a look at the geology of Boston Park and then the various memorials at Moorgate Cemetery. Knowing that most of the points of geological interest at Boston Park had largely disappeared, I went to have another look to see if a walk dedicated solely to the geology was viable and concluded that it wasn’t possible. 

 

An overgrown quarry face in Boston Park

 

Instead, I suggested to Janet that we combine both on one day and concentrate on Moorgate Cemetery, where she had undertaken a considerable amount of research on the industrialists and other businessmen and notable Rotherham characters who are buried here – an event to which she gave the title “Let’s talk about the stones”. 

 

Granite memorials in Moorgate Cemetery

 

Following on from my involvement with the Bolsterstone Graveyard Project and my visit to Moorgate Cemetery earlier in the month to photograph its Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones and general memorials, it gave me a reason to look at the granites here in much greater depth.

 

Granite memorials in Moorgate Cemetery

 

With the walk aimed at members of the general public, which I presumed had little knowledge of geology, my plan was to introduce the attendees to sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks and to look at the different granites from Scotland and the south-west of England and others from further afield – without going into great detail. 

 

Stroll in the Cemetery

Using the Stroll in the Cemetery section of the Moorgate Cemetery website as my guide to the memorials, of which Janet had a much better knowledge than me and would be commenting on during the walk, the first memorial that I encountered was the very simple sandstone headstone of John Guest (d.1880). 

 

The headstone of John Guest

 

As a partner of Guest and Chrimes, famous for its screw down taps and whose Grade II Listed foundry and brass works still survives in Rotherham despite a very suspicious fire, this is surprisingly modest for a person of his status. 

 

A detail of the headstone of John Guest

 

His partner Richard Chrimes (d.1897) is commemorated with a more substantial hipped monument, which is made in a pale grey granite that has its slight foliation highlighted by black biotite mica, with a pink tinge to the feldspars. This looks like Ordovician Kemnay granite from Aberdeenshire, which was intruded approximately 475 million years ago (Ma). 

 

View of the tomb of Richard Chrimes

 

Dr. Eric Robinson’s descriptions of this, in his London Illustrated Geological Walks, refer to an ‘oatmeal speckle’, but these books are illustrated with black and white photographs that aren’t very helpful. A much better resource to help with the identification of British granites is the British Geological Survey GeoScenic photo archive, where several samples show the variations in colour that might be expected in this granite. 

 

A specimen of Kemnay granite

 

My knowledge of Rotherham’s history isn’t very good and although I am aware of Sir Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the Bessemer steel making process, I know nothing about the firm Baker and Bessemer mentioned in the website and my next stop was to look at the memorials to various members of the Beatson and Beatson Clark families. 

 

Memorials to various members of the Beatson family

 

There are two massive sandstone memorials to various members of the Beatson family, who died between 1841 and 1854, but I am not sure if these had any connection to the firm Beatson Clark, which still operates as a manufacturer of glass bottles in central Rotherham - 270 years after the business was founded. 

 

The Beatson Clark memorial

 

Clement (d.1925) and an Ernest Beatson Clark were connected to this business and the memorial is made of a very pale grey granite, with flecks of black biotite mica, but it lacks the pink tinge to the feldspars seen in Kemnay granite. 

 

A detail of the Beatson Clark memorial

 

Although Aberdeenshire in the Grampian Highlands was the principal source of granites in

Scotland, with varied colours and textures, Devonian (c.400 Ma) ‘silver-grey’ granite was intruded into the Southern Uplands and was quarried at Dalbeattie and Creetown, with the latter having similarities to the granite used for the Beatson Clark memorial.

 

Specimens of Creetown granite