A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



land in England. The valley of the Thames 

 has some rich pastures, and the Low-level al- 

 luvium in the Kennet valley, near the junction 

 of the Thames and the Ock, and between Mar- 

 low and Windsor, produces large tracts of good 

 meadow and corn land. Neither coal nor 

 iron is found in the county. A rich and 

 important family once endeavoured to supply 

 the deficiency of the former useful substance, 

 and spent a fortune in boring for coal in the 

 neighbourhood of Radley, with the result of 

 a considerable loss of fortune but no dis- 

 covery of a carboniferous stratum. 



With the exception of the brick, tile and 

 pottery works in the southern and eastern 

 parts of the county the industries dependent 

 on the mineral resources of Berkshire are on a 

 small scale and are carried on mainly for the 

 supply of local needs. 



In the north, along the outcrop of the 

 Corallian Beds between Abingdon and Faring- 

 don, stone of various qualities has been 

 worked from very early times. The principal 

 quarries now open are at Marcham, Kingston 

 Bagpuize, Stanford in the Vale and Shelling- 

 ford, but the remains of others, which may 

 still be traced in the fields, show that formerly 

 this industry must have been of greater 

 importance than at present. The irregular 

 bands of hard calcareous sandstone found in 

 the lower part of this formation furnish good 

 building material which has been much used 

 in the district for churches, houses and barns, 

 and also to a great extent for the walls which 

 here form the fences round the fields, thus 

 giving the country the peculiar ' stony ' 

 appearance which is still more marked 

 further to the north in Oxfordshire and 

 Gloucestershire. The upper part of the 

 Corallian Beds consists of oolitic limestone 

 and rubbly coral-rock known as ' rag.' These 

 have been used for rough building, for road- 

 mending and for lime-burning. Lime for 

 the buildings belonging to the Abbey of 

 Abingdon in the fourteenth century was 

 obtained from the quarries of Cumnor. 1 

 The rag-stone is still burnt for lime at Chaw- 

 ley near Cumnor, the material being obtained 

 from shallow workings which are filled in at 

 the close of each season. 



Chalk, the commonest of the rocks of 

 Berkshire, has yielded material for a number 

 of small industries. For building purposes 

 chalk itself, when properly chosen and well 

 seasoned before use, proves fairly durable, 

 especially for inside work. 



The manufacture of whiting is another 



1 Accts. of the Abbey of Abingdon (Camden Soc.), 

 p. 47. 



small industry dependent on chalk for its raw 

 material. For the production of a good 

 article it is necessary that the chalk should be 

 pure and white and as free from flints as 

 possible. The usual method of preparing the 

 material is to break up the lumps of freshly 

 quarried chalk, to pick out the flints and to 

 throw the remainder into a harrow-mill, 

 where it is further broken up in water, the 

 finer part being run off into tanks, where it 

 gradually consolidates into ' slurry,' while the 

 coarser part remains in the mill and is thrown 

 away. When the slurry has become suffici- 

 ently thick it is dug out and made into whiting 

 and dried in lumps in sheds with open 

 sides. An old-established manufactory is still 

 carried on, on a small scale, at Warren Row 

 near Hurley, where the chalk is obtained from 

 underground workings in the side of a hill. 

 Kintbury was formerly the principal seat of 

 this industry in Berkshire. Mr. Bristow, 

 writing in 1862,2 says : ' Chalk is made into 

 whiting at Kintbury, and sent by canal thence 

 in considerable quantities to Bristol, where 

 it is consigned to the oil and colourmen. . . . 

 At Kintbury there are five manufacturers of 

 whiting, one of whom makes about 600 tons 

 per annum, the others about 300 tons each, 

 making a total of about 1,800 tons. Formerly 

 it used to fetch 30^. per ton, but now it only 

 sells for 8^.' At the present time (1904) 

 there is one whiting manufactory at Kint- 

 bury, the produce of which is mainly used 

 locally. 



A considerable number of men find employ- 

 ment in dredging gravel or ' ballast ' from the 

 bed of the Thames for use as building material 

 and other purposes. The coarser part is used 

 for concrete and the finer for the best kinds 

 of mortar and plaster. 



Here may be mentioned the quarrying of 

 the ' sponge-gravel ' at Coxwell near Faring- 

 don which has been carried on for over 200 

 years. 3 The deposit is of Lower Greensand 

 age, consists mainly of fossil sponges and other 

 organic remains, and is in great demand for 

 use on garden walks and similar situations on 

 account of its bright colour and its power of 

 absorbing moisture, paths made of it keeping 

 a dry surface in the wettest weather. 



In another part of the same deposit on a 

 hill about a mile south-west of Faringdon are 



* On the Geology of Parts of Berkshire, etc. 

 (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1862), p. 17 ; see also The 

 Cretaceous Rocks of Britain (Mem. Geol. Survey, 

 1904), iii. 393. 



3 E. C. Davey in Trans. Newbury Dist. Field 

 Club, vol. ii. Paper separately printed, Wantage, 

 1874. 



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