Roxbury conglomerate, also known as Roxbury puddingstone, is a puddingstone or conglomerate stone that forms the bedrock underlying most of Roxbury, Massachusetts, now part of the city of Boston. The bedrock formation extends well beyond the limits of Roxbury, underlying part or all of Quincy, Canton, Milton, Dorchester, Dedham, Jamaica Plain, Brighton, Brookline, Newton, Needham, and Dover[1]. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was frequently used to construct walls and house foundations in the Boston area; some of the stone was quarried in Brighton and Newton, but the most extensive workings were those in Roxbury[2].
Roxbury puddingstone is the official rock of Massachusetts. [3]
Puddingstone Park is a neighborhood park built as part of the redevelopment of a former puddingstone quarry in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston.
The American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote a poem called "The Dorchester Giant" in 1830, and referred to this special kind of stone, "Roxbury puddingstone", also quarried in Dorchester, which was used to build churches in the Boston area, most notably the Central Congregational Church (later called the Church of the Covenant) in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.[4][5]:116 [6]:111