Bath Stone

Bath Stone is a historically important stone in the south of England. It is an oolitic limestone with granular Kalziumkarbonatfragmenten and a sideritischen pigment content. It originated in the Middle Jurassic. In Germany use mineralogists for comparable rocks beside the ancient name " Rogenstein ".

Occurrence and historic use

The large limestone deposits in which the Bath stone is to be found as natural stone, extends in the UK of Purbeck and the Isle of Portland in the south of Britain over Bath and Box and Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Collyweston up in the North Yorkshire Moors.

The Bath stone was mined in Roman times and used for the construction of villas and baths. The Roman quarries were in the south of Bath.

In the 1720s the entrepreneur Ralph Allen earned on the previously operated as a small company quarries at Combe Down and Bathampton near Bath and led her company as a whole. The limestone was due to its warm, honey-yellow hue, and its good processing capabilities a popular module during the construction boom in Bath in the 18th century, was built or disguised in which almost the entire city center Georgian style from Bath Stone. Due to the notoriety of Bath in the 18th century and the use of stones by the well-known architects and architectural writer John Wood the Elder of the stone to a real fashion item was. Allen built to transport the stone blocks a rail track, with the cuboid are transported from the quarries up to Bath and to the loading point on Avon with the help of a natural gap, and so were driven by ship across the UK.

Role of the Box Tunnel

Bath stone was mined, among others, during the production of 1836 ascended Box Tunnel and served as an additional source of income of the associated railway line.

Huge quarries were between Box Hill and Corsham, branching off from the tunnel, built underground. From there, the stones were transported in the tunnel to the tunnel and a narrow gauge railway along the railway line. With the ability to transport the stones by rail on, could be achieved a large market. Reached its climax in the quarry industry 1880-1909, when millions of tons of limestone were sold. The quarries in the underground tunnel system remained open until 1969. Also, some colleges of Oxford University were built with Bath stone from the box.

After-use of the quarries

After 1936, a number of occurrences and former fractures as a munitions warehouse and later as an air raid shelter served. The Quarry at Corsham was expanded during the Cold War to the central atom bomb safe Reduit the British government.

The funded since the 17th and 18th centuries occurrence of Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines are now known as the home of several important protected bat species, especially of horseshoe bats.

1908, the companies of the Bath and Portland Stone for Bath Stone Firms in 1887 formed of seven companies Steinmetz and 1889 took over the Bath Stone Firms the quarries of stone Portland who have been exploited in addition to these Terms and for the production of cements.

Started in 1999 to fill a number of previous fractures with foam concrete.

Today's use

Today there are still two active quarries that degrade the Bath stone, they are the quarry Monk 's Park in Corsham, Wiltshire is named with a slightly cream-colored natural stone, of Hartham Park Ground stone and Stoke Hill Mine in Bath with a honey-colored stone, the box Ground stone. The quarries are operated by Hanson Bath and Portland Stone, a group of German construction Heidelberg Cement.

The Bath Stone comes with the above names in the trade and is today mainly used for restoration purposes, but also for sculptures, bricks, fireplaces, vases, window and door trims, baths, and floor and wall coverings and for wells, grave stones and monuments.