building materials

Norfolk’s earliest stone churches: Constructing a timeline of ancient religious buildings

Peter Wade-Martins has visited all 649 of Norfolk’s surviving medieval churches to study the stone types used in their construction. As a result, he has identified the use of conglomerate – along with grey quartzite, millstone grit, and tile, much of it reused from ruinous Roman buildings – as important indicators of the churches constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, before the ready availability of limestone. Chris Catling reports.

In Search of Norfolk’s First Stone Churches

REVIEW BY MATTHEW CHAMPION It is no surprise that any study of early English stone churches should focus on the county of Norfolk. With in excess of 650 medieval churches surviving to this day, the county is a microcosm of…

Roman farmstead excavated at Milton, Cambridgeshire

Earlier this year Archaeological Research Services Ltd excavated a Roman farmstead west of Milton, on the northern outskirts of Cambridge, providing new insights into rural domestic life and adding to the picture of affluence in this area of Roman Britain.…

One and all: Discovering the distinctiveness of Cornish buildings

The Cornish Buildings Group recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Dedicated to preserving and improving Cornwall’s built heritage, the Group has marked its half-century by publishing a short history of its achievements and a volume of conference proceedings that address the question: what defines Cornish buildings? Among the factors that contribute to Cornwall’s architectural distinctiveness are the county’s geology and building stones, as well as particular building types and the designs of architects who devoted much of their career to the county, as Chris Catling reports.

New study uncovers the secrets of Roman concrete

The secret of the ancient material’s durability has intrigued researchers for decades, but a new study led by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have found the key.

Brickmaking: history and heritage

It is always interesting to find a new book about bricks. Often ignored, these little marvels need to be celebrated, and, for this reviewer at least, there can never be too many opportunities to do so. The ability to manufacture…

Below These now roofless dwellings at the Dinowric quarry were built as so called ‘barracks’ for unmarried quarrymen, or for father and son, uncle and nephew. Each unit consists of two or three rooms, with a communal kitchen at one end of the terrace.

Welsh slate: chiselling through time

The extraction of slate from the hills of Snowdonia is not just an industry – it is a way of life bound up with chapel, politics, and the preservation of the Welsh language. Chris Catling explains why the Welsh Royal Commission is supporting efforts to have this industrial landscape designated a World Heritage Site.

Opposite Prior Park, home of philanthropist Ralph Allen, who transformed Bath’s small scale stone mining industry into a major commercial venture. In the foreground can be seen the wooden railway Allen built to transport the stone. above An artist’s impression of working in the part of the quarry known as the ‘Grand Canyon’.

Hollowed Ground: the archaeology of Bath’s stone mines

The hills around Bath look solid enough but below the surface they are riddled with tunnels and stone quarries. When some of these began to collapse, putting the village of Combe Down at risk, Oxford Archaeology was called in to record this vast labyrinth before it was filled with concrete. Chris Catling reports on the record they made of an industry that helped create the beautiful buildings of Georgian Bath’s ‘Golden Age’.