Stone in Archaeology Database

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Upper Inferior Oolite.

Creamy brown to pale brown or cream. It becomes a pale grey colour and hardens on exposure.

A medium grained, hard, bioclastic limestone with a crystalline calcitic matrix. It is moderately well sorted with a rough feel. Earlier examples are richer in ooliths, but the stone extracted today is rarely oolitic. Two beds are quarried: 'Fine' known as 'Brambleditch' from the quarries of the same name and used for interior work, and 'Chelynch', 'Grey' or 'Weather bed' a more coarse rock suitable for exterior construction (Watson 1911: 167). 'Chelynch' is a medium to coarse grained, moderately well sorted, granular bioclastic limestone with a matrix of crystalline calcite in which fossils (usually crinoid fragments) are present.