Building Stones

Project cluster areas

Geology information © British Geological Survey, NERC

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Herefordshire & Worcestershire have some of the most diverse geology in the UK. The variety of stone types available has created many locally distinctive building styles.This variety is not always widely recognised and can be highly localised. Better and wider understanding of this contribute to appreciation and conservation of stone built heritage and can inform sensible planning decisions.

You can browse pages on each stone type used in the area by area, geological age or rock type (see above). In every case the stones are sorted by geological age, from oldest (Precambrian) to youngest (Holocene).

Related Items

  • Malvern Stone: Lansdowne Crescent Methodist Church

    Malvern Stone

    Igneous rubble stone used in Malvern and around the Malvern Hills. A variety of lithologies make up the Malvern Hills of which diorite and tonalite (intermediate between granite and basalts) are the most common. Granites, pegmatites, dolerites, basalts and ultramfic lithologies also occur. Many of the rocks have been sheared and altered by fault movement, […]

  • 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

  • Westmorland Slate

    Also known as Honnister Slate, this is variety of slate from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group of Cumbria. Unusually it is formed from a tuff (volcanic ash deposit) – erupted during the Caradoc Age of the Ordovician (458 to 448 million years ago) – which has been subjected to high pressure and heat, metamorphosing it to […]

  • Crinoids in Wenlock Limestone ("Ledbury Marble") cobble, Ledbury

    Wenlock Limestone

    Pale grey nodular or thinly bedded limestones. In character it varies markedly across the region. Examples from the Malvern Axis hills (Abberley, Suckley etc.), Ledbury and Woolhope Dome can be spectacularly fossiliferous, corresponding to reef bodies. During the Silurian water depth deepened towards open ocean to the west and around Ludlow the Wenlock limestone is […]

  • Aymestry Limestone, Gatley Park Folly, Leinthall Earls

    Aymestry Limestone

    Blue-grey, hard, nodular argillaceous limestone. The presence of the strongly ribbed brachiopod Kirkidium knightii is diagnostic for this formation. Widely used in the Mortimer Forest, Woolhope Dome, Suckley Hills and Ledbury areas. The character of the formation, like most of the Silurian strata, can vary markedly between a massive limestone suitable for dimension stone to […]