Kentish Rag and other Kent building stones

KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES BERNA RD C. WORSSA M and TIM TATTON-BROWN The name Kentish Rag, or Ragstone, suggests a building stone suitable only for rough walling purposes, a view expressed, for example, by Howe (1910, 264), who wrote of Kentish Rag: 'It has been extensively used in churches in the Home Counties in the form of random and coursed work; it cannot be dressed . . .' From earlier periods than Rowe's time of writing there are, however, many examples of dressed stonework as well as of ashlar and window tracery in Kentish Rag. It is one purpose of this paper to draw attention to the varied ways in which the stone has been used from time to time. Kentish Rag varies in lithology along its outcrop, such that it is possible in the case of many buildings to deduce the location from which their stone has been derived. Certain Middlesex churches (Robinson and Worssam 1990) provide instances. The paper, therefore, starts with an account of the geology of Kentish Rag. Descriptions are also included of three types of stone with some resemblance to Kentish Rag: the well-known Reigate stone, from Surrey; Folkestone stone, which is rarely recognised as a building stone; and Thanet Beds sandstone from east Kent, so little regarded that it has no familiar local name. THE GEOLOGY OF KENTISH BUILDING STONES Kentish Rag occurs in the Hythe Beds formation, which is part of the Lower Greensand, a group of formations of Lower Cretaceous age (see Table 1). The ragstone is a hard sandy limestone, consisting of rounded detrital grains of quartz and of the green mineral glauconite, cemented by calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate). Analyses of the rock show around 85 per cent CaCO3. The ragstone occurs in layers from 0.10 m. up to about 0.90 m. thick, interbedded with layers of hassock, a loamy, calcareous, glauconitic sand. Such alternation, to a 93 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN total thickness, depending on locality, of about 10 to 40 m., makes up the Hythe Beds formation in Kent, almost to the Surrey border. Farther west, and throughout Surrey, the Hythe Beds consist of non-calcareous sandstones. Ragstone and hassock occur in the Hythe Beds in Sussex from Pulborough eastwards to near Ditchling (see White 1924), but the stone there is thought to have been used only locally for building. Within both rag and hassock can occur layers of chert, a very hard, splintery stone, grey when fresh, and brownish-grey when weathered. It resembles flint in being composed essentially of silica. In buildings, particularly in west Kent and in the London area, Kentish Rag is perhaps most likely to be confused with Reigate stone. Both are grey and finely glauconitic. But whereas Kentish Rag is from the Lower Greensand, Reigate stone comes from the Upper Greensand formation of Surrey. It is only slightly, or not at all, calcareous, is composed largely of particles of amorphous silica and is slightly micaceous. The absence of rounded quartz grains and the presence of scattered mica flakes serve to distinguish it from Kentish Rag (these features are best observed using a hand lens). Weathered blocks of Reigate stone commonly show a dished surface, as of stone softer than its mortar joints; those of Kentish Rag, on the other hand, tend to flake around their edges and so develop a convex profile. In east Kent the sands of the Folkestone Beds formation, within the Lower Greensand, include, from the coast inland for some 10 km. as far as Stanford, beds of a hard, grey, glauconitic calcareous sandstone, much of it gritty to pebbly (i.e. including rounded quartz grains of 2 mm. up to 5 mm. in diameter, and easily visible to the naked eye), and some of it cherty. The stone superficially resembles Kentish Rag, but is more sandy. In historical records the term 'Folkestone stone' may include both Folkestone Beds sandstone and Kentish Rag, for both were won from foreshore outcrops in the manor of Folkestone, between Folkestone harbour and Sandgate. It is recommended that the term Folkestone stone now be used only for stone derived from the Folkestone Beds. A third type of stone that may be mistaken for Kentish Rag is palegrey, fine-grained calcareous sandstone from the Thanet Beds formation. Geologically this is restricted to east Kent eastwards of Faversham. It is rarely exposed inland, but crops out as lines of ovoid round masses or daggers, up to about 0.30 m. thick, in the sands that form cliffs between Herne Bay and Reculver (Holmes 1981) and on the north side of Pegwell Bay. At both places blocks of the stone litter the foreshore. Another outcrop is on the river-cliff, now overgrown, forming the east side of Richborough Castle. The stone is finely glauconitic. It differs from Reigate stone in that it contains quartz grains. Its essential difference from Kentish Rag is that it tends to be 94 KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES laminated, such that, when weathered, the stone splits along flat bedding planes 1 cm. or less apart. DETAILED GEOLOGY OF KENTISH RAG The outcrop of the Hythe Beds in Kent (Fig. 1) forms a south-facing escarpment, the Chartland ( of Everitt 1986), extending from the coast at Sandgate westwards via Ashford, Maidstone and Sevenoaks. This tract of high relief comprises three sectors, each characterised by strata of different type. The first sector extends from Sandgate to near Boughton Malherbe. The outcrop, though attaining 110 m. (350 ft.) O.D. at Lympne and Pluckley, forms mostly but a low range of hills, and the scarp crest follows a sinuous course. The port of Hythe, until blocked by shingle in the sixteenth century, would have been well placed to ship ragstone from quarries above the town. In the second sector, from Boughton Malherbe to near Mereworth, the scarp crest takes on a straight course a little north of west, with a height around 120 m. (400 ft.) O.D. This sector, centred on Maidstone, with the River Medway traversing it and facilitating transport of stone, has always been important for quarrying. In the third sector, from Mereworth to near Westerham, and centred on Sevenoaks, the scarp crest is still a well-marked feature, and behind it is a tract of varied relief, including one of the highest summits of the Weald, of 240 m. (800 ft.) O.D. at Toys Hill. In the middle sector the Hythe Beds succession is known in detail. Until the 1950s Maidstone quarrymen had names for most of the ragstone beds. They also had their own word, 'lane', for bed in the geological sense. With increasing mechanisation the use of bed names has died out in the quarries, but the names, recorded in the Maidstone Memoir (Worssam 1963), remain of value as a basis for geological correlation. The succession can be summarised as consisting of a lower part, up to a bed of cherty limestone known as the Flint (see Fig. 2), in which rag and hassock beds are well defined and constant in thickness and maintain their individual characters over wide areas; and of an upper part in which ragstone beds are more uniform in lithology, but tend to be discontinuous, and to include seams and lenses of chert. The names given to beds differed slightly from quarry to quarry, and more so between two main groups of quarries, those around Maidstone and those at Boughton Quarries, a hamlet south by east of Maidstone. Some are quite descriptive. Thus, in the 1950s at Coombe Quarry, just south of Maidstone, a hassock underlying the Flint lane, and in which ragstone occurs only as lenticular masses or doggers, was known as the 95 '° °' 0 0 ./·'/)· 􀀇􀀈 -t Z87I Z88 + -303 I 304 TUAIBli!/PaE WEUS S 10 Mll-"ES 5 10t:ff EJ Alluvium ✓////// fcrDShore o<.tforops or 71tanet8ed!l !landstone 􀀴 Ouforopof' Folke!:tone sfone !:::=::·:•.:! Ouferop of' Hytlre. Beda 􀁃 Outcrops ofla,:qe 'Pal«a'rna' Limestone 2721273 + CA,rrER.BIIR.Y m;;f􀀉l.J;i􀀊/ l􀀆􀀇!::T I "/"/ 5􀀂 f'EGWELt: 1, (/"-/----@􀀦I BAY OR'Olla!-1 J )PEAl- oov R. j; . N lve.sfen, 1;;,,;r o-1' Ksntittlt Rqs fll'PraxiiH HYTHE l I:>Ry l /C,HTHAM OFF/.fAM l L.ITTL.E. CHAR.T l w't BASIZ l ! OF SANOGAT£ l l S4NC1c;AT£ 􀀄)JlL (\\)ttft\Wl􀀌;-- 􀀇 􀀈 ....... - .;.,..;,,!""',;.;.7: . .7 􀀏1.,I , •·:􀀇uu􀀈􀀉􀀊􀀋 ttiiii/Hstii::::=::·:· 'rop OY r-lRa9sfo11e· tmd h 0 i i ttl d 0 Cll BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN PLATE I (Brirish Geological Survey phorograph A88/6). Quarry 275 m. north of Brishing Court, Boughton Quarries, in 1952. Chance, and below that in turn came the White, a light-coloured limestone, and the Coalman, a dark grey limestone said to have derived its name from lines of dark brown charcoal-like spots, actually soft phosphatic nodules, in the hassocks above and below it. At Boughton Quarries, the Flint was known as the Coalman and the Chance seems to have died out, while a light-coloured limestone equivalent to the White was known as the Ragstone, and the equivalent of Combe Quarry's Coalman was the Newington. That these Boughton names are of some antiquity is shown by the close resemblance of those in use in 1950, in a quarry 275 m. (300 yds.) north of Brishing Court (Worssam 1963, 39), to those in two nineteenth-century accounts, one anonymous ( 1839), the other by John Whichcord junior ( 1846) (see Plate I and Table 2). The latter author, himself an architect, was the son of John Whichcord, a successful Maidstone architect. Whichcord ( I 846) described the Whiteland Bridge as one of the best beds in the quarries. A free-working bed, I 4 in. thick, blocks of it 12 ft. long could be obtained 'of almost any width required, as the fissures in the regular beds usually arrange themselves in squares; forming, as it were, so many tables of stone. ..'. While the 98 KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES principal beds worked in the 1839 and 1846 quarries must have been the same as those seen in 1950, one has an impression that the 1839 list is from a quarry that went rather deeper than that of 1846, while the 1950 quarry went a little higher in the succession than the earlier ones. The transition from the strata that make up the succession near Maidstone to those to the west is brought by the upper beds of the formation becoming increasingly sandy (see Fig. 2). A large quarry at Borough Green, near lghtham, formerly showed (Worssam 1970) in the upper half of its face many beds of coarsely sandy to gritty ragstone, some including glauconite grains of 2 mm. diameter. Finer-grained limestones, like those so well developed near Maidstone, were to be seen only near the bottom of the face. From lghtham westwards beyond Sevenoaks (Dines et al. 1969) chert occurs at the top of the Hythe Beds, in layers up to 0.30 m. thick, forming a unit up to 4 to 5 m. thick known as the Sevenoaks Stone. The presence of this very hard rock probably accounts in part for the high relief of the escarpment thereabouts. Of the many quarries that must once have existed around Sevenoaks only one remains, at Dryhill, near Sundridge, preserved as a County Council picnic site. The Sevenoaks Stone is there 2.40 m. thick. Below it a little chert occurs in some finely sandy rag and hassock beds, while the lowest beds exposed are of coarsely sandy to gritty ragstone and hassock. Ragstone is not recorded west of Brasted. Stone formerly quarried in the vicinity of Westerham, near Hosey Hill and Limpsfield Common (Dines et al. 1969, 68), is a yellowish sandstone with more resemblance to Hythe Beds sandstones near Pulborough and Midhurst in west Sussex than to Kentish Rag. The boundary between the Hythe Beds succession in the Maidstone area and that in the easternmost sector of the Hythe Beds outcrop is taken at the top of the 'Exogyra' Bed (Fig. 2), a whitish sandy or gritty limestone crowded with shells of a small variety of the oyster-like 'Exogyra', a fossil now known as Aetostreon. This bed may have been that at the very bottom of the Boughton quarries as seen by Whichcord (1846), and termed by him White Rag - 'useless, tumbles to pieces on exposure to the air'. In recent years, the quarries have shown it just below a distinctive dark grey limestone, the Black Jack, itself the lowest well-marked Hythe Beds limestone immediately west of Maidstone. Eastwards from Maidstone, the 'Exogyra' Bed rises higher in the succession, until at Little Chart and at the Goldwell quarry, near Great Chart, it occurs near the top of the Hythe Beds, with beneath it quite different rag and hassock strata from those near Maidstone. These beds persist eastwards to the coast. They include no chert, and the ragstone beds are mostly fine-grained and of a pale grey colour, with little difference in texture from one bed to the next. Bed names, such as 99 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN Square Rock and Little Diamonds, were found to be in use in one quarry in the 1950s, at Chilmington Green, but no bed sufficiently distinguishable to be traced for any distance could be recognised. Within some of the limestones occur the shells of fossil brachiopods - Sellithyris sella and Sulchirhynchia hythensis, commonly in small clusters or 'nests'. At the top of the succession from Sellindge eastwards to Hythe, where they are best developed (Smart et al. 1966, 52), occur one or more beds of a dark green, hard and tough glauconitic limestone. An account of the fossils of the Hythe Beds was given by Casey (1961). Shells are most common in the hassock beds. They are sparse in ragstone of the western and central sectors of the outcrop. Most often to be seen in building stone from those parts of Kent are cross-sections of large shells, some 150 mm. across, of Aetostreon. Trace-fossils, notably infilled burrows 10 to 20 mm. or so in diameter, show up on some weathered surfaces, of stone from all parts of the outcrop. Summary of Geology The lateral variation in stone type of the Hythe Beds of Kent is shown diagrammatically in Fig. 2. To summarise the main features of Kentish Rag as seen in buildings: (1) Stone from the westernmost part of the outcrop is likely to be coarsely sandy or gritty, with glauconite grains up to 2 mm. in diameter, and to include patches of chert; this stone, used in and around Sevenoaks, tends to develop a greenish-brown colour on weathering; (2) Ragstone from the Maidstone area is generally of a medium grey colour; it may include chert, but coarse sand grains are absent (their most easterly occurrence is in a quarry at Ditton); small brown phosphatic nodules occur in some beds; particularly good stone, in large blocks, came from Boughton Quarries; (3) Stone from the easternmost part of the outcrop should be recognisable by its pale grey colour and absence of coarse sand grains and of chert, and particularly by the presence in it of brachiopod shells - seen in cross-ection these are ovoid and about 20 mm. in length.; the dark green sandy limestone from the Sellindge to Hythe vicinity is quite distinctive. In east Kent buildings, grey, coarse to gritty stone with patches of chert is likely to be Folkestone stone. It will be noted that some ragstone from the Sevenoaks area answers to the same description. Both, probably because of the abundance of glauconite, tend to weather to a 100 KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES brownish colour, though no Kentish Rag has the conspicuous quartz pebbles seen in some Folkestone stone. The two types of stone seem to have been used mainly in the vicinity of their respective outcrops: if, however, they were exported on any scale to more distant locations, say Essex or Hertfordshire, they might be difficult to tell apart. QUARRYING PRACTICE Kentish Rag is worked in open quarries, some of which in recent years, worked for roadstone, have been very large. The hassock is largely a waste material, back-filled into worked-out parts of the quarries. Near Maidstone, at Willington (Worssam 1963, 38) and on the south side of Mote Park, are some small stone mines, of probable nineteenth-century date, made by driving horizontal galleries into steep valley sides, but these are exceptional. According to W hichcord (1846) some hassock beds provided building stone. The only such use of hassock known to the writers is for walling of a farm outbuilding, rather derelict in 1989, beside the lane through Boughton Quarries hamlet. The stone, in squared blocks, includes some phosphatic nodules, and could be Whichcord's 'Best Hassock', from just above the Newington lane. The existence of quite deep quarries near Maidstone in Roman times is suggested by hassock from a 1988 excavation in Lothbury in the City of London. The stone, which came from the foundations of a secondcentury town house (information from Dr P. Rowsome, of the Museum of London), contains numerous fossils including crushed Trigoniids, and is of a type found only immediately above the Black Jack, normally the lowest ragstone bed of Maidstone quarries. The Museum of London has on display part of a sailing barge that was wrecked at Blackfriars in the second century A.O. with part of its Kentish Rag cargo intact (Marsden 1967). Borings by the brackish to marine worm Teredo in the barge planking could have been acquired in the Thames estuary on voyages between Maidstone and London. It is borings into the ragstone itself that have provided an unexpected insight into past quarrying practice. In 1990, one of us (T.W.T. T-B.) noticed that some blocks of Kentish Rag in the quoins of the late twelfth-century tower of St. Nicholas's Hospital chapel at Harbledown, 3 km. west of Canterbury, show recent marine bivalve borings, some enclosing intact shells. Since then, similar borings have been noted in quoins of the thirteenth-century chancel of Paddlesworth church, near Folkestone, and in Kentish Rag stonework of the late fourteenthcentury rebuilding of the Poor Priests' Hospital in Stour Street, Canterbury, as well as at other places. 101 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN On being shown shells extracted from borings at the Harbledown chapel, Dr J. Taylor, of the British Museum (Natural History), London, identified them as Hiatella arctica (Linnaeus). Some of the stones at Harbledown and the Poor Priests' Hospital bear slot-like incisions about 2 mm. long, recognised by Dr Taylor as bored by the Polychaete worm, Polydora. These stones must, therefore, have been quarried from a foreshore, the only possible location for which is where the Hythe Beds outcrop comes down to sea level, from Sandgate eastwards to within 1 km. or so of Folkestone. The type of stone used in the buildings cited, a light grey limestone with brachiopods, is what would be expected at Sandgate. The beds are exposed at low tide, forming a wave-cut platform at the foot of the shingle beach. A visit to the outcrop in February 1992 confirmed the presence, in loose boulders of Kentish Rag, of borings containing Hiatella shells, and also of Polydora borings. These observations throw light on historical accounts that imply large-scale foreshore quarrying in the Folkestone vicinity, while buildings referred to in the accounts show that it was not only the Hythe Beds outcrop that was worked (for Kentish Rag) but also that of the Folkestone Beds, in the area of what is now Folkestone Harbour, for Folkestone stone. Thus, there was quarrying at Folkestone in the early thirteenth century for stone for Dover Castle, and in 1362-65 for a new castle (Queenborough, now demolished) at Sheppey (Salzman 1952, 128-9). At Dover Castle, brown-weathered, gritty Folkestone stone predominates in thirteenth-century walls, and some of the blocks, in the facing of the Colton Tower and the Constable's Tower, show mollusc borings. Light grey Kentish Rag limestone occurs in minor proportion. Foreshore quarrying is described in an account of the building of Sandgate Castle (Rutton 1893), where in 1539 men were engaged 'in carrying stone, not only in lading of carts but also wading in the water for to lade the boats, giving attendance on the tides, and waiting on the carts'. The walls of the castle are as much of Folkestone stone as of Kentish Rag. Some Kentish Rag blocks in the rubble core of brokendown parts of the walls are certainly beach-boulders, riddled with mollusc borings. The construction of Dover Harbour in the sixteenth century, of which a graphic account has been provided by Martin Biddle (1982), involved the transport of large quantities of stone from the Folkestone foreshore. In about 1535, 'huge stones as laie on the shore, neere the low watermark (where the quarrie or mine of those rocks is)' were attached by chains to large barrels, which, floating as the tide rose, lifted the stones so that they could be towed by small boats to Dover - a device that so pleased Henry VIII that he awarded a pension to the Dover 102 KENTISH RAG A ND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES fisherman who invented it (Rutton 1893). The 'huge stones' are more likely to have been Cl > a 0 -1 @ ;,o @ z -1 0::, 􀀇 p Cl z Cl en 6 rn .j::,. 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' -􀂄 . .-.. ,.:71 _-. ·,, .',:i . .l ..... ,..,. • ' • ,. .,-,;􀀠 . . .,,,...-. , . . . • ( ij ))"'"""'" .. . ,. i.;·'. .., " 􀒇 ' . : .􀒈 .,. . . • ,: •. ,,- t,,." !;!.I􀒉-·:' ,.}􀒊/' • • .,,.?:.,,,,;-:-::. ..J,· e·· 􀂅.. ..... .. 􀂆 , .., . ,.,.r -,:, .,Ji:i,••-... ... ... . ..., 􀂇" r,:·. ,!:.,}'" •. 􀒋 􀒌 r ;''.,_ 􀒍- ,,-; • _ :]_..., 􀒎;,"-:􀒏:·, t;• .•· ,·􀀑 .'!ff,f};􀀎. -:· •·· . _✓ ' .,.... ,, ,.,, . . ..... ...,, ..... !.;..r'.' 􀒐---✓;,·, ·􀒑 {''-,-;.,F- ' - , ' "f 􀀡· ..>1·" 'I'.􀀢 • 􀀣•􀀤• -J>􀀥 · · t:'>,.IL-􀀦 ' ; ·-·1 '\ _ >􀀄J ,j -:\ .􀂈.: J 􀀅 􀀄t/· .. · •.\';. Ql lll:lll (Canterbury Archaeological Trust) Detail of tooling and mason's mark on a block in the plinth of SI. George·s Gate, Canterbury c:c m ;;oz ► ;o0 0 $:. 0 ;;o CllCll ► :::: :,p, 0. ::l :s:: -l 􀒒 0 z 6:, ;;o 0 􀒓 z KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES towers north of Burgate. The recently-excavated semi-circular tower at 16 Pound Lane (Tatton-Brown 1977) and the plinths at la Pound Lane (Anderson 1989) and of St. George's Gate (Bennett and Houliston 1989; Tatton-Brown 1989) showed a very high quality cut and tooled ashlar, that at St. George's Gate (Plates IV and V) recorded as coming from Maidstone in 1483, imported through Whitstable. Ashlar and 'ornell' supplied to Sandwich in 1463 may have been for the town gates there. Sixteenth century Church-tower building and enlargement of churches continued into the pre-Reformation years of the sixteenth century. The tower of St. Mary Magdalen in Canterbury was rebuilt in c. 1503, its street frontage (to the north) faced with ragstone ashlar. The stone is in blocks up to 1.10 m. long, much like those used for the Cathedral buttresses over a century earlier, though on this fairly small tower they look over-sized. The south aisle of Otford church (1520-30) has walls of ragstone blocks, some with conspicuous coarse glauconite grains and cherty patches that indicate derivation from nearby Sevenoaks. Some very large blocks, irregularly shaped and 0.50 m. or more across, are apparently face-bedded, but seem not to have suffered unduly from weathering as a result. In London some fine ragstone ashlar was used for the great gatehouse of St. John's Priory in Clerkenwell, built in 1504. The stone is of a grey colour, and looked at closely is seen to be sprinkled with fine (0.20 mm. diameter) glauconite grains. Conspicuous in the lower stage of the gatehouse are large blocks of this stone, of similar dimensions to those used for the St. Mary Magdalen tower in Canterbury. Ragstone in similar large blocks is to be seen in the crypt of St. Bride, Fleet Street. The stone there was re-used by Sir Christopher Wren, after the destruction of the medieval church in the Great Fire of 1666, for a foundation wall on the east side of his new steeple. It was brought to light by archaeological excavation after the second gutting of the church in a 1940 air raid (Grimes 1968). The stone can be presumed to have been part of a late medieval tower, the position and date of which (Gustav Milne, personal communication, January 1993) are still matters of conjecture. On the north side of Charterhouse Square, an outer wall and gateway, both probably of sixteenth-century date, remain of the London Charterhouse. The gateway is a four-centred arch of finely wrought Kentish R a g ashlar. The wall has a bold chequerwork facing, comprising 45 cm. (1 ft. 6 in.) squares alternately of coursed ragstone blocks and knapped flints. The ragstone contains many chert bands. It 115 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN probably came from Maidstone, and would have been suitable only for walling. The Folkestone stone and Kentish Rag of Sandgate Castle, built in 1539-40, have been mentioned on an earlier page. The walls of the castle also include scattered squared blocks of re-used Caen stone, from St. Radigund's Abbey and elsewhere (Rutton 1893). The contemporary Deal Castle has walls faced with squared blocks of Folkestone stone, Kentish Rag and re-used Caen stone, roughly in proportions of 70, 20 and 10 per cent. Some of the Folkestone stone and Kentish Rag blocks show mollusc borings. A later fortification, its stonework almost wholly Kentish Rag, was Upnor Castle, on the River Medway, built in 1559-67 and enlarged in 1599-1601. Some ashlar came from Boughton, but much of the stone for the castle came from the demolition of parts of Rochester Castle (Saunders 1985). Fordwich Town Hall, built shortly before 1544, is notable for its timber framing; its ground floor, originally open, is now walled in, in part with large squared blocks of Folkestone stone. Seventeenth century The seventeenth century must have seen a great decline in demand for Kentish Rag. Brick was in fashion for domestic architecture, while Portland stone came into use for public buildings in London. A minor use was for gravestones - Otford church has some large Kentish Rag ledger stones dated 1625, 1626 and 1635, and smaller ones of 1705 and 1715, but Portland stone, introduced there in 1697, replaced Kentish Rag in the eighteenth century. Sackete (1716) recorded that stone quarried on the Folkestone foreshore had been shipped to Dunki r k in the time of the Commonwealth for harbour works, and that stone from the same source had been used, nearer his time of writing, for Dover pier and other pier heads. Eighteenth century Some eighteenth-century ragstone masonry displays a high level of skill. An instance is Sevenoaks School, built in 1724-34 to the designs of Lord Burlington. The walling stones, in smallish blocks, with joints galleted, have flat, slightly roughened surfaces, but an ashlar finish was given to door and window surrounds and other architectural details. Chert patches and scattered coarse glauconite grains in some of the stone indicate an origin in nearby quarries. Another distinguished Kentish Rag building is Mereworth church 116 --.J PLATE VI lialiiilll".- F r t .a. Nd (Bernard Worssam) The Manor House, High Street, Sevenoaks. of about 1800. The front elevation is of Kentish Rag ashlar. ;<: ['T1 z j en :c ;:o )> C'l )> z C, 0 ..., :c ['T1 ;:o ;>:: ['T1 z ..., 0:, C r S:! z C) en ..., 0 z ['T1 en BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TAT TON-BROWN (Newman 1980, 421), one of the few eighteenth-century churches in Kent, of 17 44-46. Its architect is unknown. The western or entrance side and the north wall of the church, facing the public highway, are of Kentish Rag ashlar blocks 7 to 8 in. in height, giving two courses to each of the large Tunbridge Wells sandstone quoin stones. Stone of less regular sizes was used on the east and south walls. The stone is of a uniformly grey colour. It could have come from the lower beds of Boughton Quarries, or from some working between there and Mereworth. In any case a large quarry is indicated, to have provided so much evenly-dimensioned stone. The Manor House, High Street, Sevenoaks, of about 1800 (Newman 1980, 514), may be cited as a typical example, for its period, of fine Kentish Rag ashlar, at least for the street frontage - the side elevations, equally visible from the street, are of rubble stonework. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries In the early years of the nineteenth century Kentish Rag was widely used for public buildings in Kent. Maidstone Gaol, 1811-19, with its massive perimeter wall of Kentish Rag ashlar, with rusticated plinth and buttresses, is one example. Another is Barming Heath Asylum, now Oakwood Hospital, designed by John Whichcord senior (1830). And fine ashlar masonry is to be seen in the piers of Thomas Telford's (1829) Loose Viaduct, which carries the Maidstone-Cranbrook road over the Loose valley. Evidence for quarrying in east Kent is provided by a note in the Canterbury Cathedral Chapter m i n u t e s of 1834, i n which the woodreeve and surveyor, Mr Lake, was instructed to negotiate the digging of stone on the chapter's estate at Great Chart. In Canterbury the old Police Station, now the Music School, was built about 1840, in a Gothic style to fit in with the neighbouring medieval Westgate. Its yellow brick walls have ashlar quoins of Kentish Rag, of light grey east Kent type. With the coming of the mainline railways, from 1842 onwards, freestones such as Bath stone became widely available - already in the later 1830s, however, 300 tons per week of Caen stone were imported to Canterbury (to rebuild the cathedral's north-west tower) via the new Whitstable harbour and the Canterbury and Whitstable railway, which was opened in 1830. Kentish Rag from the mid-nineteenth century onwards became regarded primarily as a rubble walling stone. Fortunately, a record of quarrying and building practice from the time when ragstone still ranked as a building stone of high quality survives in John Whichcord junior's (1846) Observations on Kentish Ragstone as a Building Material, a privately printed version of a paper read by 118 I KENTTSH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES 119 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN the author at the Royal Institute of British Architects. As well as an account of the succession at Boughton Quarries, referred to above (p. 98), the work includes detailed stonework specifications for Holy Trinity Church, Maidstone (built 1826) and Platt church, near Ightham (1842). In quarrying, according to this author, it was usual to remove the less valuable layers by blasting with g unpowder. Quarries were worked so as to expose the upper surface of each of the more valuable beds in different places. The larger blocks of superior quality, known as ashlar, were, for economy in transport, usually reduced as nearly as possible to the required dimensions. Because the blocks could not be sawn, the process, known as 'skiffling', was performed with a heavy double-pointed hammer. In using ashlar, care was required to have the stone laid upon its natural bed. The blocks for door and window jambs and mullions needed to be set on end, but as the thickness required was not great it could be got from the heart of the stone. In contrast to ashlar, 'headers' were stones worked without much attention to beds and joints, to give one face square or rectangular, and the sides often receding at an acute angle so as to bring the stones, when laid, to a closer joint. Headers were laid in coursed, random coursed (levelled out in a rough manner at every foot or 16 in. in height), or random header work. In the cheapest, 'rough random' work, the expense of heading was saved. It was stressed that stones should be laid in ragstone mortar, as chalk lime would not adhere to the ragstone. Changes in Kentish Rag usage during the nineteenth century are shown by Riverhead church, near Sevenoaks. Its tower and nave by Decimus Burton, 1831, in a lancet style (Newman 1980, 469), have rough random walling, coursed header plinth and parapet to the nave, and ashlar window jambs and buttresses. All this stonework is of local, coarsely sandy to gritty Kentish Rag. Tunbridge Wells sandstone was brought into use for the elaborately carved west doorway, for hoodmouldings and sills to the windows, and for a bold cornice just below the parapet. In 1882, the chancel was rebuilt, by Sir Arthur Blomfield, who used Kentish Rag only for random walling, and Bath stone for all dressings. W hereas the stones of the 1831 nave walling show a tendency to diagonal alignment, those of the chancel were deliberately laid so, giving an effect, unlike anything seen in medieval work, as of vertical crazy-paving. This type of diagonal random work was quite common in the later part of the nineteenth century - St. John's church, Sevenoaks (1 858-59), provides another example - and its use continued into the present century, as shown by two barrack blocks in Dover Castle, one of 1868 (with Bath stone dressings), the other of 1913 (with Portland stone dressings). 'Random coursed' walling of 120 N PLATE VIII 􀀋1•􀀌-􀀍- -!r􀀎 ea (B.C. Wors.sam) Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Riverhead, south side. The nave, to the left, by Decimus Burton, 1831: chancel and vestry, to the right, by Sir Arthur Blomfield, 1882. &; z -l 􀀄 :i: ;;o ► Cl ► z 0 0 -l :i: tT1 ;;o &; z -l co C F 0 z Cl "' -l 0 z "'tT1 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN Kentish Rag, along with Bath, Caen, or other stone dressings, was, however, also common in the same period. Instances in Sevenoaks are the Vine Baptist church (1887) and the Methodist church, The Drive (1904). In the nineteenth century, indeed, although the tradition of finer workmanship in Kentish Rag was lost sight of, as the quotation from Howe (1910) at the beginning of this paper shows, the use of the stone expanded greatly. Topley (1875, 375) gave a list, originally published by Papworth (1858), of thirty-three Kentish Rag churches with Caen, Bath or other stone dressings, built in London and its suburbs between 1841 and 1858. In Kent the stone is ubiquitous in nineteenth-century suburban houses, schools, farm buildings, bridge abutments, retaining walls, river and sea walls, and so on. In the present century the use of Kentish Rag for building has inevitably declined drastically. S o m e recent instances of its employment are the use in about 1980 of stone from Offham Quarry for the facing of retaining walls of the pedestrian underpasses to the roundabout at the east end of the Medway bridge in Maidstone; the r e s t o r a t i o n i n 1 9 8 6 by J o h n B y s o u t h Ltd. ( m a s o n s ) of the fourteenth-century tracery of f i r s t - f l o o r c h a p e l w i n d o w s at Eastbridge Hospital in the High Street, Canterbury; and, in Essex, the new (1991) Roman Catholic Cathedral in Brentwood, designed in classical style by Quinlan Terry, with Kentish Rag walling to match the stonework of its Gothic Revival predecessor of 1861. The Kentish Rag used in 1992-93 by stonemason Ray GammonHardaway for facing the retaining wall along the riverside walk east of the Medway in Maidstone is from two different quarries. The wall, for 300 m. northwards from Earl Street to the railway bridge, comprises ten large panels between concrete uprights. The five southern panels are of stone from Stangate Quarry, the last remaining of once extensive lghtham quarries. The most northerly panel is of stone from the Hermitage Lane Quarry, Barming, opened only in 1990, while intervening panels show a mixture of stone from the two quarries. Stone from the Hermitage Lane quarry has also been used for repairs to East Farleigh church, near Maidstone. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would very much like to thank Veronica Tatton-Brown for wordprocessing several drafts of this text, and John Atherton Bowen for making the final version of the two figures. 122 KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES TABLE 1 Summary of the Cretaceous geological succession ill Kent Period Group Formation Approx. Main thickness lithology (m.) in Kent London Clay 120 clay ( Oldha,􀀔 Beds 8 sand and pebble-beds Palaeogene 'Lower London Woolwich Beds 8 sand and clay Tertiaries' Thanet Beds 30 sand Upper Cretaceous Chalk 200 chalk and flints ! Upper Greensand 0-5 sand Gault Gault 60 clay j'" lk"'to"' Beds 60 sand Lower Lower Sandgate Beds 5-30 clay Cretaceous Green sand Hythe Beds 30 rag and hassock Atherfield Clay 5-20 clay Weald Clay . 200 .. clay 'Wealden Hastings Beds 300 sandstones and clays TABLE2 Ragstone bed names at Boughton Quarries Anon., 1839 Whichcord 1846 Names in use in 1950 Robin Land Rag Land Rag Green Rag ,, . Header Laying Thin Yellow Rag Green Rag Potlids Green Rag Yellow Rag Toughy Pelsey Pelsea Pelsey Colemans Coleman Coalman Little Coleman Great Rag Great Rag Ragstone Newington Newington Cleaves Newington Flinty Laying Whitland Bridge (the best) Whiteland Bridge Whiteland Bridge Main Bridge Main bridge Main Garron Gari Girl Horsebridge Horsebridge l Bottom Lane Headstone Laying Second Bottom Lane Header Laying Bottom Lanes 2 or 3 lanes called Hoistings, some Header Laying of which are more or less joined 2 or 3 thin lanes Upper Bottom Laying Several lanes called Black Greys Under Bottom Laying White Rag 123 BERNARD C. WORSSAM and TIM TATTON-BROWN REFERENCES Anderson, 1989 Anon., 1839 Archibald, 1934 Bennett and Houliston, 1989 Biddle, 1982 Blagg, 1990 Blockley, 1990 Casey, 1961 Coles, 1950 Colvin, 1971 Dines et al., 1969 Eames, 1958 Everitt, 1986 Grimes, 1968 Haigh, 1872 Holmes, 1981 Hope, 1913 Howe, 1910 Hubbard, l 951 Hutchinson et al., 1985 King, 1786 Larking, 1859 Livett, 1889 Livett, 1909 I. Anderson, '13. Nos lA-14, Pound Lane,' in 'Interim report on work carried out in 1988 by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust',Arch. Cant., cvi (1989), 151-3. Anon., The topography of Maidstone and its environs. J. Archibald, Kentish architecture as influenced by geology. P. Bennett and M. Houliston, '14. St. George's Gate', in 'Interim report on work carried out in 1988 by the Canterbury Archaeological T rust', Arch. Cant., cvi (1989), 153-6. M. Biddle, 'I. Dover Harbour' in (Ed.) H.M. Colvin, History of the King's works 4, pt. 2, 729-68. T.F.C. Blagg, 'Building stone in Roman Britain' in (Ed.) D. Parsons, Stone: quarrying and building in England AD 43-1525, 33-50. P. Blockley, 'Excavations at Riding Gate, Canterbury, 1986-87', Arch. Cant., cvii (1990), 117-54. R. Casey, 'T he stratigraphical palaeontology of the Lower Greensand', Palaeontology, iii (1961), 487-621. Cyril A.G. Coles, Some notes concerning All Saints Church, Birchington (1945, reprinted 1950). H.M. Colvin, Building accounts of King Henry lll. H.G. Dines, S. Buchan, S.C.A. Holmes, C.R. Bristow, 'Geo logy of the country around Sev enoaks and Tonbridge,' Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt Br J. Eames, 'A Roman bath-house at Little Chart, Kent', Arch. Cant., lxxi (1958), 130-46. A. Everitt, Continuity and colonization: the evolution of Kentish settlement. W.F. Grimes, The excavation of Roman and medieval London. D.H. Haigh, 'Notes in illustration of the runic monuments of Kent', Arch. Cant., viii ( 1872), 162-270. S.C.A. Holmes, 'Geo logy of the country around Faversham', Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt Br. W.H. St. J. Hope, Windsor Castle: an architectural history (2 vols.). J.A. Howe, The geology of building stones. G.E. Hubbard, The old book ofWye. J.N. Hutchinson, Cynthia Poole, N. Lambert, E.N. Bromhead, 'Combined archaeological and geotechnical investigations of the Roman fort at Lympne, Kent', Britannia xvi (1985), 209-36. E. King, 'An account of the subsidence of the ground near Folkestone on the coast of Kent', Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., lxxvi (1786), 220-8. L.B.L. (i.e. the Rev. Lambert Larking), 'Fabric roll of Rochester Castle,' Arch. Cant., ii (1859), 111-32. G.M. Livett, 'Foundations of the Saxon Cathedral Church at Rochester,' Arch. Cant., xviii (1889), 261-78. G.M. Livett, 'Nettlestead church: 1 - Architectural notes 124 KENTISH RAG AND OTHER KENT BUILDING STONES Marsden, 1967 Newman, 1980 Newman, 1983 Papworth, 1858 Robinson and Worssam, 1990 Rutton, 1893 Sackete, 1716 Salzman, 1952 Saunders, 1985 Smart et al., 1966 Tatton-Brown, 1977 Tatton-Brown, 1980 Tatton-Brown, 1989 Tatton-Brown, 1991 Taylor, 1965 Topley, 1875 Wheeler, l 930 Whichcord, 1846 White, 1924 Worssam, 1963 Worssam, 1970 Worssam and Tatton-Brown, 1990 by the Rev. G.M. Livett,' Arch. Cant., xxviii (1909), 251-77. P.R. V. Marsden, A Roman ship from Blackfriars, London. J. Newman, The buildings of England: west Kent and the Weald, (2nd. edn. 1976, reprinted with corrections). J. Newman, The buildings of England: north-east and east Kent (3rd. edn). Wyatt Papworth, 'Building stones used externally in and near the Metropolis,' The Builder, xvi (1858), 632-3. E. Robinson and B.C. Worssam, 'The geology of some Middlesex churches', Proc. Geol Assoc., c (4), 595-603. W.L. Rutton, 'Sandgate Castle, A.D. 1539-40'. Arch. Cant., xx (1893), 228-57. J. Sackete, 'An account of a very uncommon sinking of the earth, near Folkestone in Kent', Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. xxix (for 1714-16) (349), 469-72. L.F. Salzman, Building in England down to 1540. A.D. Saunders, Upnor Castle, Kent (London: English Heritage). J.G.O. Smart, G. Bisson, B.C. Worssam, 'Geology of the country around Canterbury and Folkestone', Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt Br. T. Tatton-Brown, '16 Pound Lane, Canterbury,' in 'Excavations in 1976 by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust,' Arch. Cant., xcii (1977), 235-44. T. Tatton-Brown, 'St. Martin's church in the 6th and 7th centuries', in (Ed.) Margaret Sparks, The Parish of St. Martin and St. Paul: historical essays in memory of James Hobbs, 12-18. T. Tatton-Brown, 'Documentary evidence,' in 'Interim report on work carried out in 1988 by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust', Arch. Cant., cvi ( 1989), 156-61. T. Tatton-Brown, 'Medieval building stone at the Tower of London', London Archaeologist, vi (13), 361-66. A.J. Taylor, The Jewel Tower, Westminster, 2nd. edn. (London: English Heritage). W. Topley, 'The geology of the Weald', Mem. Geol. Surv. GtBr. R.E.M. Wheeler, 'The Roman lighthouses at Dover', Arch. Journ., lxxxvi (1930), 29-46. J. W hichcord, jun., Observations on Kentish Ragstone, as a building material. H.J. Osborne White, 'The geology of the country near Brighton and Worthing', Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt Br. B.C. Worssam, 'Geology of the country around Maidstone', Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt Br. B.C. Worssam, 'Field meeting on the Hythe Beds of Kent', Proc. Geol. Assoc., lxxxi, 1970, 69-74. B.C. Worssam and T. Tatton-Brown, 'The stone of the Reculver columns and the Reculver Cross', in (Ed.) D. Parsons, Stone: quarrying and building in England A.D. 43-1525, 51-69. 125

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Rochester Cathedral: The north choir aisle and the space between it and 'Gundulf's' Tower