In Canterbury this year, with the topic "Marine Geotales", so lots of interesting lectures on a marine science theme. Then on Sunday morning we split up into groups for field trips - I went on the Canterbury Building Stones trip with Geoff Downer
Here we are, about to set off from the coach drop off point in Lower Chantry Lane, Geoff in the check shirt on the right. From here we walk to St Augustine's Conduit House on King's Park.
First stop - St Augustine's Conduit House
Originally roofed, this was where water was collected from several springs and then fed along a pipe to the Abbey
Three archways where the spring tunnels feed into the conduit house
Geoff explaining it to us. Although the Abbey was destroyed in the 16th Century the conduit house continued to be used, supplying water to a brewery, up until the 19th C.
St Martin's Church
We visited here to see a couple of tombstones in the churchyard, before moving round the back where there are the remains of an early chapel
Walter Cozens, a local builder, has a nice lump of granite, but also, unusually, a sarsen!
Around the back is Mary Tourtel's grave - she was the creator of Ruper Bear!
Built in 597 it is the earliest Christian Church - the first church founded in England, the oldest parish church in continuous use, and the oldest church in the entire English speaking world. It forms part of Canterbury's World Heritage Site along with the Cathedral and St Augustine's Abbey.
Moving around the east end of the church to the north side we could see Roman bricks - thinner and flatter - mixed in with the flints etc of the later church, and sandstone quoins
The Roman bricks
Checking out the stonework in the church
A reconstruction of the original "Bertha's Chapel" on which the east end of the church is based.
"St Martin's was the private chapel of Queen Bertha of Kent in the 6th century before Augustine arrived from Rome. Queen Bertha was a Christian Frankish princess who arrived in England with her Chaplain, Bishop Liudhard. King Æthelberht of Kent, her pagan husband, allowed her to continue to practise her religion by renovating (ca. AD 580) an existing church which the Venerable Bedesays had been in use in the late Roman period but had fallen into disuse. As Bede specifically names it, this church was dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, a city located near where Bertha grew up.Upon Augustine's arrival he used St Martin's as his mission headquarters, immediately enlarging it (AD 597), and King Æthelberht was soon baptised here. With the quickly subsequent establishments of Canterbury Cathedral and St Augustine's Abbey, St Martin's lost prestige but retains its priority and historical importance."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Martin%27s_Church,_Canterbury accessed 21/1/15
A selection of the Church's building stones
The old prison
Returning to Longport Street we stopped to look at the old HM Prison. This is an early "panopticon" (all-seeing) style prison (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon ) designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th C.
The prison has now been bought by the University, apparently for student accommodation. (Maybe a future symposium?!)
We were more interested in the ooids and bioclasts in the Portland Stone!
St Augustine's Abbey and a wall game
Around the corner, in Longport Lane, we had a view of St Augustine's Abbey. The abbey was founded shortly after AD 597 by St Augustine and, with the Cathedral and St Martin's Church, forms the World Heritage Site.
Large blocks of Caen Stone in a wall by the Abbey.
From here we tried our hand at recognising different types of local building stone in an old wall.
This Thanet Sandstone has, unusually, been bored by modern piddock shells
A selection of stones in the wall. Amongst the more common Caen Stone, Flint, Ragstone and Thanet Sandstone we spotted rarer Marquise Stone, Quarr Stone (which came from the Isle of Wight and had been worked out by the 12th C), Tufa and Purbeck Marble.
Something different in Monastery Street - "Brick tiles" - a way of facing a wall to appear like brickwork
In Lady Wootton's Green we found an information board with some more detail about Bertha, whose chapel we had seen earlier, and from where we had a good view towards the Cathedral, over the city wall.
Thanks to Geoff Downer (who I understand has just taken over as South East Branch Organiser) for a particularly interesting take on building stones with a lot of history included.
