Description

GA Guide 72, volume 1

This is a combined research volume and comprehensive introduction to what is probably Britain’s most spectacular and diverse decorative marble, yet the least well-known. Many people are familiar with Purbeck Marble and some will know of Ashford Black Marble from Derbyshire and the specimen marble items that flowed from that, but few have heard of Devonshire Petitor, Ashburton or Ogwell marble, or of the much more unusual Rose Red Radford, once used to make a massive stone-built valentine fireplace. Yet these are iconic British marbles spread not only amongst an amazing number and diversity of UK and worldwide buildings, they were also the basis for a specimen marble ornament industry that rivalled the Derbyshire one.

This GA guide is available as two separate volumes:

Volume 1: Understanding the marbles, highlights the discovery, characteristics and uses of Devonshire marble, its origin amongst the Devonian Coral seas of Devon and the formation of its rich textures in the geological upheavals that followed.

In Volume 2: Recognising the marbles, there are guides to the best outcrops of the limestones, to the 30 best buildings up and down the country that contain the ‘marbles’, to the fossils, once collector’s items, and of course to the marbles themselves, of which there are at least 20 distinct varieties.