Brownstone
Medium to coarse sandstones occasionally with layers of quartz pebbles which outcrops most of the South-east corner of Herefordshire. Compared to the underlying Raglan Mudstone and St Maughans Formations the Brownstones are both more dominated by sandstones and more uniform in appearance. Deep brown or even purple coloured, the occurrence of bands and spots of pale green are characteristic, particularly in Ross-on-Wye. Further north the boundary between them and the underlying St Maughans Formation is gradational and so distinguishing the two can be problematic. Quartz pebbles, occasionally present in the upper parts of the formation around Ross, are lacking in the St Maughans and so serve to differentiate the Brownstones is present.
Browse the database for sites using Brownstones ->
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- te quarters, Goodrich Castle
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- Brownstones – Ashfield Villa, Ashfield Crescent, Ross-on-Wye
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Hollybush Sandstone
Cambrian age, dark green, flaggy, micaceous sandstone with abundant chlorite and glauconite. Only known use for building is in Hollybush Church. Browse sites on the database using Hollybush Sandstone
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Old Red Sandstone
The Old Red Sandstone is a large group of rocks of late Silurian and Devonian age. They were formed in a semi-arid desert environment which has given them their conspicuous red colouring through the intense weathering of iron-bearing minerals. Nevertheless, they are highly variable in outcrop with red, green, purple or brown colourings, coexisting in […]
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Downton Castle Sandstone
Thinly bedded yellow-brown or buff micaceous fine-grained sandstone with interbedded brown-grey siltstone and mudstone. The narrow bedding make the sandstone bands an excellent tilestone and, where the beds are thickest, freestone. In the Mortimer Forest and other areas west of Ludlow, the Downton Castle Sandstone was an important dimension stone for lintels or more important […]
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Gorsley Stone
Local variety of Downton Castle Sandstone quarried from Linton Quarry and other smaller working in Gorsley, SE Herefordshire. The historic buildings of Gorsley village are almost all built from this stone. In comparison to varieties elsewhere in the county the Gorsley Stone has less of a greenish tinge and is marked by an attractive pale […]
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Raglan Mudstone
Most of the Raglan Mudstone Formation, which underlies the central plain of Herefordshire, consists of red, purple and green mudstones but beds of sandstone occur too and have been widely used for building stone. Sandstones tend to be micaceous and flaggy with multiple colours in a single bed. More unusually, on Bringsty Common a coarse […]