A HISTORY OF DORSET 



which had practically ceased at the end of the 

 eighteenth century. This revival was due in 

 part to the needs of church restorers," though 

 local marble has also been occasionally employed 

 to some extent in new work, as for instance in 

 the church built by the earl of Eldon at Kings- 

 ton. 



The stone quarries in the neighbourhood of 

 Swanage continue to be worked in much the 

 same manner as they have been for centuries. 

 They are not open v/orkings, since the best beds 

 of stone lie very deep. Indeed the approaches 

 are inclined shafts to the depth of a hundred 

 feet or more. In 1877 there were at least 

 ninety-two of these stone mines worked, as the 

 late Sir C. Le Neve Foster reported, 



by I, 2 or 3 men underground, who are in many 

 cases the owners as well as the occupiers. Their work 

 is often most irregular ; if the men can find work as 

 masons, they abandon their quarries for a time, and 

 do not return to them till other work is slack. 



The annual output of dressed Purbeck stone and 

 marble amounted in that year to 11,816 tons 

 10 cwt., besides 1,41 1 tons, 10 cwt. of undressed 

 stone. 



The marble from the Upper Purbeck Series 

 can be got in blocks seven or eight feet long, 

 but seldom more than a foot in thickness. Its 

 gradual disuse towards the close of the Middle 

 Ages was in part perhaps due to change of fashion 

 or in part to the fact established by experience 

 that it was lacking in durability. The local 

 * burr ' of the Upper Purbeck Series has been 

 largely used for local buildings in the past, and 

 was employed in the nineteenth century during 

 the restoration of Wimborne Minster. It is a 

 compact sandy limestone and occurs in thick 

 beds. 



From the principal veins ^* of the Middle 

 Purbeck Series, the Lane-and-end or Laning 

 Vein, the Freestone Rag, the Freestone Bed and 

 Upper Tombstone Bed, Brassy Bed and Lower 

 Tombstone Bed above the Cinder Bed, and be- 

 low it the Button, Feather, Cap and New Vein, 

 considerable quantities of good stone are still 

 obtained suitable for kerb-stones, paving, building 

 and tiling purposes. The limestones of the 

 Lower Purbeck Series found in the Isle of Purbeck 

 proper are of little value. Outside it they 

 furnish good material at Portisham. 



In the cliffs between Durlston and St. Albans 

 headlands beds of the same general character as 

 those in the Isle of Portland have been largely 

 quarried under the name of Purbeck-Portland. 

 Some excellent oolitic stone was long worked 



" e.g. Temple Church and later the Ch.ipter House 

 at Westminster and Exeter Cathedral. 



"" For a full account of the various veins, see 

 Hutchins, op. cit. i ; Damon, Geology of Weymouth ; 

 Woodward, Jurassic Rocks of Britain, v ; A. Strahan, 

 Geology of Isle of Purbeck, 91 et seq. 



underground here in galleries as at Winspit 

 and Tillywhim.'' From the ledges of these 

 clifF quarries the stone was shipped into stone- 

 boats when the weather permitted them to lie 

 close in shore. Smeaton was of opinion that this 

 stone was inferior in colour to the best stone 

 from Portland Island, harder to work, and, as he 

 was informed, not in general near so durable.^* 



Long before the period of recorded history the 

 stone of Portland Island was doubtless occasion- 

 ally quarried, and indeed of its very ancient use 

 for sepulchral purposes evidence actually exists. 

 A tomb possibly of the Early British period 

 excavated in the Purbeck beds and immediately 

 above the upper 'dirt bed' was found in 1897 

 in the Combe Fields Quarry between Weston 

 and Southwell. Internally it was lined with 

 flat Purbeck stones or ' slats ' horizontally laid 

 and pugged in clay, behind which the roof of 

 the chamber was in part roughly arched and 

 covered with slabs of stone.**' Other similar 

 tombs and cists of stone slabs from the Upper 

 Portland beds have also been discovered on the 

 island.*' 



Edward the Confessor had granted to St. 

 Swithun's, Winchester, Portland with other 

 manors, but the Conqueror seems to have treated 

 the gift as invalid,'" though his son Henry 

 Beauclerk again confirmed to the monks the 

 manor ' as King Edward had given it them.' "* 

 It is possible that during their tenure of Portland 

 the monks of St. Swithun's may have exported 

 stone to a distance, but of this no documentary 

 evidence exists." The stone used by Walkelin 



" Damon, Geology of Weymouth (1884), 199. The 

 Tillywhim Quarry derives the second portion of its 

 name from the crane or ' whim ' used to lower the 

 stone into the boats. See Robinson, A Royal Ifarren, 

 93. The 'best bed' of Purbeck-Portland stone is 

 thickest at Seacombe Quarr}',where it reaches 8 ft. with 

 4 ft. of inferior stone above it (Strahan, op. cit. 64). 



'* Smeaton, Eddystone Lighthouse, 66. 



^"^ In this tomb was found a mortar formed out of 

 the ' Roach ' bed with a pestle of flint. Another 

 chamber was afterwards opened close by, of similar 

 construction, but nothing was found in it. It was 

 probably used for the storage of grain ; ex inform. 

 Mr. J. Merrick Head. 



" Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist, and Jntif. Field CM, xix, 

 128, &c. Captain Mascall, R.E., 'List of Remains 

 discovered in neighbourhood of Verne Hill,' in Damon, 

 Geology of Weymouth, 240 el seq. 



" In Domesday Portland is surveyed as 'Terra 

 Regis.' 



" B.M. Add. MS. 29436, fol. 14. 



" Some of the stone, however, found in the Norman 

 work at Christchurch Twyneham cannot be distin- 

 guished from Portland oolite, and may not un- 

 likely have come from quarries at Wyke or Portland. 

 Mr. J. Merrick Head informs us that the earlier of the 

 two ruined churches at Portland, which is of twelfth- 

 century date (? 1 140-60), is built partly of local stone 

 and partly of Purbeck marble. The original tool- 

 marks are still visible. Rufus Castle, which lies 



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