A colour match with grey/green Kentish Ragstone |
In the end, the contract for restoring Aldershot Town Hall was not won by Triton Building Restoration Ltd. and petrographic analysis, or further investigation of a suitable stone to undertake repairs, was therefore not needed on this occasion.
Various specimens of Kentish Ragstone |
The best colour match, between the samples of sandstone from the plinth and the miscellaneous rocks that I have, is with part of one of the samples of Kentish Ragstone that I had obtained from the Hermitage Quarry. Although a siliceous limestone, I don’t think that it would look out of place for small repairs, especially as the glauconite will weather to give a light brown patina.
Colour variation |
For the sake of completeness, in what was now just an academic stone matching exercise, I also obtained samples of other glauconitic stones from the Vale of Wardour in Wiltshire - Chicksgrove limestone and Hurdcott Green sandstone.
Chilmark stone used for edging |
Along with fine glauconitic calcareous sandstone from the Teffont Mine at RAF Chilmark, which is used as edging in my garden, it provided me with a complete set of stones that have been used for restoration at Salisbury Cathedral and as a replacement for Reigate Stone.
Chilmark stone from the Teffont Mine |
I know Reigate Stone only through seeing it used at the church of All Hallows by the Tower, where it was very green, in the Tower of London and a few other historic buildings in the south-east of England, but I have never seen a rock exposure or held a piece in my hand.
All Hallows by the Tower |
Whilst used widely in Westminster Abbey, large churches and royal palaces, it developed a reputation from early use for its lack of durability and the last of the Reigate Stone mines, which stretched from Godstone in the east to Brockham in the west - a distance of 10 km - closed in the 1960’s. To the west of Brockham, the rocks are steeply tilted and were unsuitable for mining.
Reigate Stone ribs in the Tower of London |
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