294 LIAS OF ENGLAND AND WALES : 
The tougher and more crystalline limestones of the Blue Lias, 
furnish the better building-stones ; the banded and fissile and 
more earthy limestones being unsuitable. 
The best paving-stones are obtained from the lower portions 
of the limestone-series, usually the zone of Ammonites planorbis ; 
for these strata as a rule are more evenly-bedded than the lime- 
stones at higher stages. 
At Street near Glastonbury and at King Weston and Keinton 
Mandefield, good paving-stones (paviours) are obtained, slabs 12 
feet square and even larger are sometimes raised. Some of the 
beds at Keinton have been tried for lithographic stone. Curb 
stones and building-blocks are also procured, and slabs are 
employed for garden-fences, imparting however a dull aspect to 
the cottages, as may be seen at Street, Queen Camel, Marston, 
and other villages. Troughs, steps, and tomb-stones are also 
shaped from particular layers of stone. (See p. 77.) 
Stone- walls are a common feature in the district of the Lias 
limestones, and the enclosures as a rule are small. 
In the neighbourhood of Street, when the stone has been 
worked cut, the quarries are filled in with the " rubbish " (shale 
and broken limestone), and the ground is then planted with 
apple-trees. In such sheltered and well-drained situations, 
orchards are found to flourish. 
Building-blocks have been obtained at Sahford and Keynsham, 
and the stone has been employed in some of the churches of the 
district, and in Great Western Railway works. Thus the railway- 
station at Keynsham is built of the Keynsham stone (Blue lias). 
Nevertheless, as remarked by Prof. Lloyd Morgan/' wherever 
Lias has been used, there will you find the abundant signs of 
decay."* 
In Worcestershire and Warwickshire the basement-beds of the 
Lower Lias yield good paving-stone, also stone that is employed 
for steps, and that has at times been polished for mantel-pieces, &c. 
Slabs from 1 to 8 inches thick, and 30 square feet in super- 
ficial area, are obtained. None of the beds afford any durable 
building-stone, as the rock exfoliates under the influence of the 
weather. 
Bluish-grey and buff or pale-grey slabs are obtained at Wiim- 
cote : and these are useful for inside work in halls, &c., as the 
stone is smooth and even-grained. White house-paving-stone is 
obtained from a layer known as the " Whites," and when rubbed 
and cut into squares, it forms a very smooth floor : it has been 
used in the Houses of Parliament and in the New Law Courts. 
Rougher slabs, suitable for the floors of farmhouse kitchens and 
barns, have also been obtained in many localities : as at Hasler 
Hill near Evesham, Binton near Bidford, &c. 
It is stated that the Wilmcote Stone can be rubbed to a face 
sufficiently smooth to be used for lithographic purposes ; and, it 
was mentioned by Strickland that "Experiments, partly sue- 
* Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc., ser. 2, vol. v., p. 95. 
