Strategic Stone Study A Building Stone Atlas of Cambridgeshire (including Peterborough) Published January 2019 Contents The impressive south face of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (built 1446 to 1515) mainly from Magnesian Limestone from Tadcaster (Yorkshire) and Kings Cliffe Stone (from Northamptonshire) with smaller amounts of Clipsham Stone and Weldon Stone Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 Cambridgeshire Bedrock Geology Map ........................................................................................................... 2 Cambridgeshire Superficial Geology Map....................................................................................................... 3 Stratigraphic Table ........................................................................................................................................... 4 The use of stone in Cambridgeshire’s buildings ........................................................................................ 5-19 Background and historical context ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5 The Fens ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland ................................................................................................................................................................ 8 East Anglian Chalk ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands ........................................................................................................................................................ 11 Kesteven Uplands ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Northamptonshire Vales ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 14 Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge ................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Rockingham Forest ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Brecklands .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Clay Bat, Chalk Cob and Cob .................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Stones in walls ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18 Cambridgeshire’s indigenous building stones ......................................................................................... 20-30 Middle Jurassic ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 Upper Jurassic ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 24 Lower Cretaceous ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Upper Cretaceous....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Quaternary ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Imported building stones ......................................................................................................................... 31-38 Cambridge colleges ...................................................................................................................................................................................................39 Glossary ........................................................................................................................................................... 41 Acknowledgements and References ............................................................................................................ 43 Introduction The geology of Cambridgeshire can be regarded as an exten- are five district councils, Cambridge City Council, South sion of that of the adjoining parts of neighbouring Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire District Council, East Cambridgeshire District Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Norfolk. This is reflected Council, Huntingdonshire District Council and Fenland District in the building stone usage within the county. Council. In the north and west of Cambridgeshire, most of the Hunting- The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority donshire District sits on Jurassic clays overlain by glacial till. A was established in 2017 as part of a devolution deal made with small area in the north western corner of the county, to the west Central Government. The Authority is made up of representatives of Peterborough, is underlain by Middle Jurassic limestones. from the County, Unitary and District Authorities under a single The geological succession here includes the Lincolnshire Mayor. Limestone Formation, which is the source of a variety of attractive building stones much used throughout Cambridgesh- Building stones in this Atlas are treated as either ‘Indigenous’ or ire. ‘Lincolnshire Limestones’ are characteristic of the built ‘Imported’ and are described in stratigraphic order. To assist heritage of many villages and small towns in this north western the reader in navigating around the Atlas, entries in the part of the county. The same Formation also supplied stone for stratigraphic table and the corresponding descriptions are cathedrals and high-status buildings in Peterborough and Ely interactively linked (by means of small coloured triangles and for many of the college buildings in Cambridge. In many located in the upper right-hand corner of the relevant pages). cases, supplies of locally worked Lincolnshire Limestone were supplemented by supplies of very similar limestones imported The section of this Atlas summarising the use of stone in from Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. Cambridgeshire is based on the relevant National Character Areas (NCAs), the boundaries of which are very relevant to the Much of central and eastern Cambridgeshire is dominated by vernacular built heritage. They are defined by a combination of the distinctive low-lying and flat landscape of the Fens and the local landscape character, history, cultural and economic bedrock geology here mainly comprises Upper Jurassic clays. activity, geodiversity and biodiversity (https://gov.uk/ Occasional outcrops of Lower Cretaceous sandstones and government/publications/national-character-area-profiles- ironstones have yielded workable stone for local construction data-for-local-decision-making). purposes, but much of the stone employed in buildings in this area has been imported from north-west Cambridgeshire, Parts of the following nine National Character Areas extend into Northamptonshire and Norfolk via the regional network of Cambridgeshire: waterways. The gently rolling and hilly landscape of South NCA 46 The Fens Cambridgeshire is formed from Upper Cretaceous Chalk and NCA 75 Kesteven Uplands Flint, overlain in places by boulder clay and fluvioglacial gravel NCA 85 Brecklands deposits containing various pebbles and cobbles. Chalk, Quarry NCA 86 South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland Flint, Quaternary Flint and harder Pebbles and Cobbles have NCA 87 East Anglian Chalk been widely used for local building purposes in this area. NCA 88 Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands NCA 89 Northamptonshire Vales The modern administrative county of Cambridgeshire was NCA 90 Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge formed in 1974 by the amalgamation of the former county of NCA 92 Rockingham Forest Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely with the county of Huntingdon and the Soke of Peterborough. Between 1898 and 1965, the Isle of Ely formed an administrative county on its own. Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely were merged in 1965. The