A Tour of Chatsworth House - VI

A marble foot wearing a sandal

My exploration of the various decorative stones and geological specimens in Chapel Passage at Chatsworth House finished at the west end, where I encountered a granite that I immediately recognised, with its very distinctive appearance of large pink orthoclase feldspar phenocrysts set in a black matrix. 

A marble bust on a luxullianite pedestal

Luxullianite, the tourmalinised granite used in a pedestal, is from the village of Luxulyan in Cornwall and is probably best known for being used for the sarcophagus of the Duke of Wellington, which lies in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. 

Luxullianite bookends in Treeton

I first saw this rare stone in the old Geological Museum in London, as a plinth on one of the statues that once lined the upper galleries and, when undertaking fieldwork relating to my professional interest in building stones, I later acquired a large lump from a disused quarry that I had made into a pair of bookends. 

A figure of the goddess Sekhmet

There are also various ancient stone artefacts scattered around, which include a colossal marble foot wearing a sandal from Ancient Greece, a diorite figure of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet and a Roman altar stone of unknown origin; however, with many other people often looking at them too, I couldn't closely look at any of the them and so I continued into The Chapel.

A Roman altar stone