Geology and history revealed in the maintenance of stone houses

摘要

Remember Martin Robins? He was the rather maverick force behind Farmington Quarry until he decided to take early retirement in 2005. He had some fairly unconventional, not to say confrontational approaches to promoting the stone, especially when he compared it to Bath stone and upset some of the producers of Bath stone. These days he lives as quietly as he is ever going to in a house called Glebe Farm in Lower Stanton St Quintin in Wiltshire. According to a date over the front door, Glebe Farm house was built in 1582. Martin is only the third ever owner of the house because until recently it was part of the 13,000-acre estate of the Earl of Radnor and was rented to tenant farmers. It was built of what is described in old geology books as the finest cornbrash in the county. The stone was taken from a small quarry near Glebe Farm house. The evidence of the quarry can still be seen, although it is overgrown these days. Presumably the stone was used for the building of the Earl's own house, Draycott, which was demolished in the 1950s.