Headington stone is a limestone from the Headington Quarry area of Oxford, England. [1] [2] [3]
Headington stone is a limestone from the Headington Quarry area of Oxford, England. [1] [2] [3]
Around 160 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic period, Britain was located further south and was submerged beneath a subtropical sea. The warm conditions meant that coral reefs could flourish. When the coral died, it was buried under successive layers of sediment and other debris. After millions of years, this became fossilized. It formed the Corallian Limestone that is now beneath the Headington Quarry area of Oxford.
Historically, there were a number of stone quarries in Headington Quarry. Headington stone was traditionally used for a number of the older Oxford University college buildings. In 1396, stone from quarrying in Headington was used to build the bell-tower for New College. It was also used for Oxford's city walls. Headington stone was used in the 1520s by Cardinal Wolsey to build his Cardinal College, now known as Christ Church.
Headington stone was particularly good for building since it can be cut in any direction and thus carved relatively easily. The stone was employed in buildings outside Oxford such as for Eton College and Windsor Castle. Later stone extracted from the quarry was of less good quality, for example, that used to build the lower part of the Radcliffe Camera. The stone was prone to erosion by pollution. [4]
The use of Headington stone in Oxford University buildings was mentioned by John Betjeman (1906–1984) in his poetry: [5]
Friend of my youth, you are dead!
and the long peal pours from the steeple
Over this sunlit quad
in our University city
And soaks in Headington stone
Sir John Betjeman was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
Portland Stone or Portland Stone Formation is a limestone formation from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major public buildings in London such as St Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. Portland Stone is also exported to many countries—being used for example in the United Nations headquarters building in New York City.
Indiana limestone — also known as Bedford limestone in the building trade — has long been an economically important building material, particularly for monumental public structures. Indiana limestone is a more common term for Salem Limestone, a geological formation primarily quarried in south central Indiana, USA, between the cities of Bloomington and Bedford. It has been called the best quarried limestone in the United States.
Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings.
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:
The Wren's Nest is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Dudley Metropolitan Borough, north west of the town centre of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. It is one of the most important geological locations in Britain. It is also a Local Nature Reserve, a national nature reserve (NNR) and Scheduled Ancient Monument. The site is home to a number of species of birds and locally rare flora, such as Scabiosa columbaria, milkwort and quaking grass. The caverns are also a nationally important hibernation site for seven different species of bat.
Headington is an eastern suburb of Oxford, England. It is at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames valley below, and bordering Marston to the north-west, Cowley to the south, and Barton and Risinghurst to the east. The life of the large residential area is centred upon London Road, the main road between London and Oxford.
Risinghurst is an outlying residential area of Oxford, England, just outside the Eastern Bypass Road which forms part of the Oxford ring road. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the centre of Headington and 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Oxford city centre. It is part of the Risinghurst and Sandhills civil parish and is typical of housing estates built between the wars to house an increasingly prosperous working class who were moving into new urban centres—in this instance to take advantage of the burgeoning motor industry in Oxford.
Hamstone is the name given to a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material which weather differentially to give exposed blocks a characteristic furrowed appearance. In origin, Hamstone is a Jurassic limestone from the Toarcian, or Upper Lias, stage.
Jerusalem stone is a name applied to various types of pale limestone, dolomite and dolomitic limestone, common in and around Jerusalem that have been used in building since ancient times. One of these limestones, meleke, has been used in many of the region's most celebrated structures, including the Western Wall.
Doulting Stone Quarry is a limestone quarry at Doulting, on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England.
Meleke, also transliterated melekeh or malaki, is a lithologic type of white, coarsely-crystalline, thickly bedded-limestone found in the Judean Hills in Israel and the West Bank. It has been used in the traditional architecture of Jerusalem since ancient times, especially in Herodian architecture. Though it is often popularly referred to as Jerusalem stone, that phrase can refer to a number of different types of stone found and used in or associated with Jerusalem.
The Platteville Limestone is the Ordovician limestone formation in the sedimentary sequence characteristic of the upper Midwestern United States. It is characterized by its gray color, rough texture, and numerous fossils. Its type locality is Platteville, Wisconsin. It was heavily used in the early decades of the building of Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Faribault, Minnesota.
The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassic times, between 195 and 200 million years ago. The Blue Lias is famous for its fossils, especially ammonites.
Morton gneiss, also known as rainbow gneiss, is an Archean-age gneiss found in the Minnesota River Valley of southwestern Minnesota, United States. It is one of the oldest stones on Earth, at about 3.5 billion years old. Along with the nearby Montevideo Gneiss, it is the oldest intact continental crust rock in the United States. Its type locality is in Morton, Minnesota.
Headington Quarry is a residential district of Oxford, England, located east of Headington and west of Risinghurst, just inside the Oxford ring road in the east of the city. To the south is Wood Farm. Today the district is also known colloquially as "Quarry". The area, now residential, is considerably uneven due to previous quarrying in the area.
Taynton is a village and civil parish about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) northwest of Burford in West Oxfordshire. The village is on Coombe Brook, a tributary of the River Windrush. The parish is bounded in the south by the River Windrush, in the north partly by Coombe Brook and its tributary Hazelden Brook, in the west by the county boundary with Gloucestershire and in the east by field boundaries. The 2001 Census recorded the parish's population as 108.
Rock Edge Nature Reserve is a small nature reserve and park in an area that was once a limestone quarry in Headington, east Oxford, England.
The Corallian Group or Corallian Limestone is a geologic group in England. It is predominantly a coralliferous sedimentary rock, laid down in the Oxfordian stage of the Jurassic. It is a hard variety of "coral rag". Building stones from this geological structure tend to be irregular in shape. It is often found close to seams of Portland Limestone. It is a younger limestone than its near-neighbour, the Oolitic, as found in the Cotswolds, in Gloucestershire. It is laterally equivalent to and interfingers with units of the Ancholme Group.
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