The Walls and Churches Survey
You can help investigate our underlying geology by looking at walls!
In the past, when people built churches and other buildings, they rarely went to the trouble of obtaining their raw materials from far away sources. Long distance transport was usually just too expensive. Instead, they looked around for local building stone - sometimes robbing from existing buildings - and had to be content with whatever they could find.
This means that there is usually a strong correlation between the type of stone that we find in church walls, and the local geology close to the church. In addition, we can infer the existence of previous buildings by, for example, noting the prevalence of Roman bricks and other artifacts within our church walls.
This means that there is usually a strong correlation between the type of stone that we find in church walls, and the local geology close to the church. In addition, we can infer the existence of previous buildings by, for example, noting the prevalence of Roman bricks and other artifacts within our church walls.
