Stone in Archaeology Database

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Great Oolite Series.

A cream coloured stone with occasional dark inclusions.

A medium grained, moderately well sorted, hard, oolitic limestone with occasional shell fragments and rare large broken shell debris (up to 3mm in length).

Bath Stone of unspecified type was used by the Romans for baths, buildings, villas, memorial stones and sculptures. There were probably Roman quarries at Combe Down and an early inscription to an official suggests imperial interest at the time of Caracalla. Little quarrying occurred in the Saxon period, and the next earliest reference to Bath Stone is in 1207 with small scale quarrying. Activity continued from this time up until the 18th century which became the 'great age' for Bath Stone extracted from Combe Down, Odd Down and Hampton Down (Stanier 2000: 68).