215 



XIY. — The Building and Ornamental Stones of Cormvall, with notes 

 on their Archceology. — By E. N. "Worth, F.Gr.S., Corr. 

 Mem. 



Read May 2\st, 1875. 



THOUGrH in a strictly comiaercial sense Cornwall possesses 

 only one building stone — its granite — it aboimds with, stones 

 used for building, several of wMcli are of great local value. 

 The Cornish Grranites — from the quarries at Gunnislake, th.e 

 Cheesewring, De Lank, Par, Penryn, and Laniorna — have found 

 their way to distant parts of the Kingdom, and have aided in 

 rearing some of the most sttipendous monuments of modern 

 engineering skill. Locally, they have been employed from the 

 very earliest times ; and their use has been continuous until the 

 present. Next to the granite hills as the sources of local 

 building stone, rank the elvans and trap rocks. The best known 

 elvan is that at Pentewan, near St. Austell ; but there are others 

 of nearly equal merit, though of less note : those for example at 

 Illogan, used at Tehidy House, Creegbrawse, and Newham, the 

 latter much used in Truro, and strongly resembling a sandstone. 

 Thousands of quarries have been opened, for the supply of 

 immediate local wants, upon the elvans and traps. The most 

 celebrated stone which the latter have produced in Cornwall, is 

 that from the Catacleuse Cliffs near Padstow. The "kiUas" of 

 the county, in some places, yields good building stone. Perhaps 

 the best of this class is that raised at Margate near Bodmin. 

 The laminations are thick, and the stone squares easily, and 

 presents a fair appearance. Two other local varieties of building- 

 stone — bothi of very limited occurrence, remain to be noticed, the 

 recent sandstone at Newquay ; and the Polyphant stone, raised 

 at Launceston. 



We can trace the use of granite to pre-historic times. The 

 stone circles, the menhirion, the cromlechs, are nearly all of 

 granite. The reason is not far to seek. In the early ages when 

 those structiu^es were reared, far more than now, the hills 

 and downs were strewn with detached blocks of this stone, 

 of all shapes and sizes, from which the task of selection 



