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| A detail of Guildford Cathedral |
When I was asked to display a selection of my hand printed black and white photographs at the Art House in Sheffield, I left the choice of the prints to the curator, Amanda Evans, even though it omitted several of my favourite photographs and included subjects that were not made of stone.
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| St. Leonard's churchyard in Streatham |
I started out with my black and white photography at the same time that I had fallen back on my degree in geology, after leaving the building restoration industry, to further develop my specialist skills in “stone matching” – starting at St. Leonard’s church in Streatham, London.
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| A head stop at St. Leonard's church |
My first ever black and white print was of a simple wheel cross in the churchyard, made in the very familiar Portland limestone, and I later returned to photograph the Bath stone head stops and the flint walling that are found on the north side of the church.
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| Flagstones at the Leather Bottle public house in Kent |
Not long after, I was asked to produce a record of the flagstone floor at the Leather Bottle public house, once frequented by Charles Dickens, which had deteriorated to such an extent that it had become a serious Health & Safety hazard and needed to be replaced.
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| Walling stone and quoins in East Sussex |
Taking advantage of my membership of English Heritage and the National Trust, I then spent a lot of time visiting Kent and Sussex for day trips and further afield in Dorset, Wiltshire and beyond when visiting the in-laws for a weekend.
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| Stone roof tiles in West Sussex |
Wherever I went, I would take note of the landforms and the building stones, which reflect the underlying geology, and I got to see a wide variety of sandstones and limestones – including Chalk, Kentish ragstone, Reigate stone, Chilmark, Purbeck marble, Ham Hill stone, Quarr stone and Jurassic oolites.
At the Geological Terrace in Bournemouth, I encountered one of the best collections of building stones that I have seen, with large blocks brought in from all over the British Isles and originally comprising 202 specimens of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.
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| The Geological Terrace |
The sea front position has exposed all the specimens to the elements and they have weathered to varying degrees to leave a variety of textures, which are just as important as colours – when selecting a building stone to be used for the repair of a historic building.
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| St. Michael's Mount |
I visited the coast on a few occasions, to look at the string of fortifications that had been erected by Henry VIII but, except for a trip to Marazion in Cornwall, where I photographed St. Michael’s Mount – using a tripod for the first time - I didn’t encounter any rock outcrops.
Looking at the various buildings through the eyes of a surveyor/restoration contractor, I observed the condition of different stones in the various structural elements, dressings and weathering courses – noting in particular the bedding, variations in grain size, fossil or shell content and general patterns of weathering.
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| The Bianchi tomb in Hampstead Cemetery |
Continuing with my exploration of various cemeteries and churchyards, I progressed to providing contract records for Wandsworth Borough Council, during the cleaning and conservation of the Huguenot tombs in Wandsworth and Putney - a project that also appeared in the local newspaper.
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| The tomb of Peter Paggen before and after cleaning |
In addition to Portland limestone, used for most of the table tombs and often thickly encrusted with clinker like deposits of dirt, I encountered white and grey marbles, Kilkenny limestone and also artificial Coade stone.
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| The crypt at Mont St. Michel |
Although I spent of my time travelling in the part of southern England that is bounded, approximately, by the line of the River Thames to the north, I had trips abroad when practising my black and white photography – in Normandy and in Crete.
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| The harbour at Heraklion in Crete |
On these occasions, I have to say that I didn’t take notice any of the rocks at Mont St. Michel but, when I flew from Crete to Santorini for a few days, I could not help but notice that I was surrounded by volcanic rocks.
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| The rim of the caldera at Santorini |
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