The Stones of Britain: a history of Britain through its geology

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 429

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REVIEW BY ROB IXER

This is a peculiar hybrid of a book. It is a pretty good generalised account of British ‘historical geology’, namely a description of the occurrence of all the rocks given in stratigraphical order from the earliest Precambrian of north west Scotland to the most recent Pleistocene of East Anglia. Superimposed on this are plentiful, often quirky but memorable, illustrations of how these rocks and their juxtaposing have controlled and influenced the history of the inhabitants of these islands, in their labour, their art, their mythology, and their dreams.

It is an extravagantly composed book (the author clearly enjoyed writing every page): the very old rocks of Assynt are compared (favourably) to Bach’s Mass in B minor; Daphne du Maurier is cited, and it reads as if she or perhaps Barbara Cartland were channelled in the writing. There are very few juicy chunks of archaeology or history, but it offers nearly 400 pages of tables spread with delightful tales and snippets. This is a must-have one-off Christmas gift for the relative who has everything.

The Stones of Britain: a history of Britain through its geology
Jon Cannon
Constable, £30
ISBN 978-1472116833

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