Bargate stone

Bargate stone is a highly durable form of sandstone. It owes its yellow, butter or honey colouring to the high iron oxide content, thus can also be considered ironstone. Its closest relation in England is Yorkstone which is usually paler.

Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Dunsfold

Sources

This stone was quarried for centuries in the Greensand Ridge particularly where it is widest in south west Surrey, England. It is particularly near the surface and was heavily quarried in hillsides of the large parish of the town of Godalming. Main medieval quarries are visible in Godalming, at the foot of Holloway Hill.

Bargate stone is in relatively rare current use, it being difficult to find other sources in England of a strong yellow/honey coloured sandstone. Bath stone, Yorkstone and other similar coloured stone is sometimes instead used, or to complement it.

Use

Bargate found in many buildings in Surrey, approximately 250 of which are listed, and in two churches in London.^[1] It is endemic to older buildings near the Greensand Ridge where it is found and since bricks to certain buildings employing the more expensive stone-masonry rather than bricklaying construction, where it is in documented use since the Norman Conquest.

Its 20th century use tended towards coursed use of Bargate sandstone with bricks, or concrete, sometimes with ashlar dressings or mortar rendering.^[2]

Examples

Early medieval

• The Keep at Guildford Castle.^[3] It was a credit to the strength of Bargate that it was chosen for the main structure, standing on top of the natural chalk and Bargate stone bedrock, made it available by quarrying in the locality.
• Godalming Parish Church, Grade I listed assisted by Saxon features.
• Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Dunsfold
• St Nicholas's Church Compton, Guildford (Bargate rubble used, mortar-rendered)^[4]
• Church of St. Mary the Virgin (12th century tower only), Oxted in Tandridge District, east Surrey^[5]
• St Mary's Church, (relevantly mostly in clunch from its own Quarry Street) Guildford^[6]
• St James's Church, Abinger^{[7][n 1]}
• All Saints Church, Witley, Surrey^[8]

16th Century

Tillingbourne Cottage, Wotton, Surrey^[9]

17th Century

Cosford Mill, Thursley^[10]

18th Century

• Leith Hill Tower^[11]

19th Century

• St Catherine's School/Drama Studio, Guildford^[12]
• St Stephen's Church, Gloucester Road, London (York stone parpoints and dressings in Bath stone)^{[n 2][13]}
• St Nicholas's Church, Guildford^[14]
• St Michael's Church, York Town, Camberley^[15]
• The Shah Jahan Mosque, completed in 1889 along with similar-coloured Bath stone, but a limestone not a sandstone
• Charterhouse School (completed 1872)^{[16][n 3]}
• St Stephen's Church, Rochester Row, Westminster^{[17][n 4][18]}
• Munstead Wood^{[n 5][19]}
• Chinthurst Hill^{[n 6][20]}
• Grafham Grange School, Bramley^{[n 7][21]}
• St James' Court, Farnham^{[n 8][22]}
• St Johns Church, Caterham^{[n 9][23]}

20th Century

• The Pergola, Vann Park and Garden, Hambledon^[24]
• Pinewoods, Oxshott^[2]
• Tigbourne Court, Wormley (blocks with thin horizontal bands of tiles)
• Hascombe Court, Hascombe ^{[25][n 10]}
• Platform of war memorial, Bramshott, Hampshire^{[n 11][26]}
• St Tarcisius, Camberley — the War Memorial Church to the British Catholic army officers who died in World War I. North Lady Chapel has triple arches and a stone reredos depicting the Virgin and Child and angels^[27] Bath stone dressings^{[n 12]}
• Surface of loggia courtyards at Orchards by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, Bramley, Surrey^[28]

Notes and references

Notes

References