68 Some Account of the Parish of Monkton Farleigh. 



Avon a person may ride from Littleton Drew by Yatton Keynell, 

 Biddeston, Harthamj Rudlow, Chappel-Plaster, Kingsdown, Far- 

 leigh-Beeches, Conkwell, and Winsley, to Bradford, without crossing 

 a brook/'' 



The rainfall in our parish is considerable, and this and the short 

 distance — not twenty miles as the crow flies — from the sea give a 

 softness to the atmosphere and, occasionally, some days together of 

 thick mist and piercing wind, but there is ever a fresh breeze even 

 in the hottest weather, and usually the climate is bracing and not 

 too cold. 



We have sand and clay in the parish, but speaking generally the 

 soil is, I believe, what is known as the stone-brash, and the quarries 

 of freestone are a peculiar feature in the substrata in the upper or 

 west end of the parish. 



The earliest mention of these quarries that I know of occurs in 

 the year 1439, when the following entry in regard to them appears 

 in the account No. 26 of the parish of St. Michael, without the 

 north gate, Bath : — "et de vij"* pro cariagio lapidum ad predictam 

 domum et de iiij*^ in expensas apud Farley pro meremio/'' ^ But 

 the quarries must have been in work long before that period. Mr. 

 Newman, an experienced builder of Bathford, has examined care- 

 fully the foundation and the interior stone- work of the Priory, which 

 date from the early part of the thirteenth century, and pronounces 

 the whole to be of Farleigh Down stone, quarried out of the now 

 disused quarries. 



There are at present no less than ten different quarries at work in 

 the parish, and the outcome of marketable stone is very considerable. 

 This stone has not now, although in earlier days there was an upper 

 stratum which had, the durability of the Box stone, but it is easy to 

 work and is very valuable for use in the interior of buildings. It 

 is sometimes used for exteriors also, but is apt to yield to the frost. 



^ Mr. Tooke kindly furnished the above extract from the late Mr. Pearson'a 

 accounts of the parish of St. Michael, Bath, page 48, and Mr. Pearson, he says, 

 explains that under the word "meremium" was comprehended stone fetched 

 from Farley and other quarries for building purposes. 



