Lower Cretaceous
In sharp contrast to the marine limestone successions of the Jurassic, the Lower Cretaceous of southern England is dominated by a thick succession of freshwater clays, with only thin non-marine and paralic limestone and sandstone beds developed which were suitable for building purposes.. The lithologies exploited for building stone in the Lower Cretaceous succession were very varied and include fossiliferous limestones (Paludina marble), spicular sandstone - composed almost entirely of siliceous sponge spicules (Reigate Stone aka Malmstone or Firestone), and calcareous and variably glauconitic sandstones (the Oldbury, Ightham, Sandgate, Kentish Ragstone, Pulborough, Bargate, Tunbridge Wells, Horsham and Ashdown stones).

The Paludina Marble (aka Bethersden, Sussex or Petworth marbles) was extensively exploited for building and decorative stone in the Weald area (Topley 1875; Worssam & Tatton-Brown 1993). The 'marble' is a hard, fossiliferous freshwater limestone which could be quarried in blocks up to 3 feet in thickness in some places (Arnold 1896). The numerous freshwater gastropods present (Viviparus sussexiensis) give it its characteristic coarsely mottled appearance when polished. The stone was widely used for decorative effect in churches in Sussex and Kent.

The more siliceous nature of the Reigate Stone made it ideally suited for fire-resistant hearthstones and oven linings and the stone was extensively mined for this purpose but was also used for local building over several centuries (Sowan 1975). The most widely exploited of these Lower Cretaceous stones is the Kentish Ragstone, a hybrid mix of quartz sand and limestone which, despite its fairly intractable nature, once formed the basis of a major quarrying industry in the Maidstone area of Kent. Few older stone buildings in Kent or London are without some Kentish Ragstone in their fabric. A particular feature of some of the limestones and sandstones from the Lower Cretaceous is the presence of the vivid green mineral glauconite for example, Fovant and Hurdcott stones. Its presence can impart a distinctive green coloration to some of the rocks.

Upper Cretaceous
The Upper Cretaceous succession in Britain is dominated by chalk lithologies. In general these fine, white to pale grey chalky limestones (commonly known as Clunch) are relatively soft and needed to be protected from the weather. They were principally used for interior carved stone decoration. Three areas were particularly noted for chalk production in the past, the Totternhoe quarries and mines in Bedfordshire, Burwell in Cambridgshire and the Beer mines in Devon (Jukes-Brown 1904; Dimes 1990).

Chalk from Totternhoe was widely used for intricate internal decorative carving as in Peterborough Cathedral and the walling of the great abbey and house at Wobum. The Burwell Stone was also used for intricate carved work, as in the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral. The Chalk of the Beer Quarries has been exploited since Roman times, it is a hard variety which has been widely used for both external and internal stone work at Exeter Cathedral and in numerous church windows throughout the south-west.

Knapped flint wall
 

Tertiary building stone resources
Tertiary sedimentary outcrops are restricted to the Hampshire and London basins in the south of England. They would appear at first sight to be unlikely candidates for providing building stone because of the generally poorly consolidated nature of the successions. However, the lack of building stone resources in the south east of England in general has meant that two lithologies in particular formed important local building stone resources in the past. The best known of these stones are probably the Sarsen stones, which are silica cemented sandstones, developed extensively in the Woolwich and Reading formations (Lambeth Group) and in the Barton Beds, and exposed at the surface by subsequent erosion. The wide distribution of these sandstones in buildings of the London Basin has been documented by Potter (1998). The second stone of note comes from the Tertiary succession of the Hampshire Basin. This stone is a fossiliferous freshwater limestone commonly known as Quarr Stone and was quarried from the Eocene Bembridge Limestone Formation. The limestone was an important medieval and later building material both locally in the Isle of Wight and in Hampshire but was also used occasionally imported into London (Ashurst & Dimes 1990).
A third source of building stone of much more restricted use was the hard ‘septarian’ nodules that are widely developed in the London Clay Formation. These large limestone nodules were widely used as a source of lime (cementstones) for cement in the 19th Century but in earlier times were also widely used as rubble wallstone as at Orford Castle in Suffolk.

Dursley Tufa was used extensively at Berkeley Castle for example. Although originally quite common in many of the limestone areas around Britain the deposits are now largely worked out and the stone is no longer available in quantity. As a building material it has a long history. It was particularly favoured by the Romans, for example in Chesters Fort on Hadrian's Wall and its use has been recorded in other Roman structures. Tufa was also much prized by Norman (e.g. St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury) and later medieval builders. It is easily worked, strong, highly porous and therefore light. These properties made it a suitable choice for vaulting masonry in churches and cathedrals. Tufa was also much in demand in Victorian times for constructing show-piece garden 'grottos'.

The Jerwood Centre Cumbria. Burlington slate

Present state of the building stone industry
Increasingly the extra demands being made on the stone producers has seen them begin to put their house in order. New British Standards and tighter EC proposals will demand much more information is made available about the properties of building stones. 

The dimension stone industry has to continue its efforts to educate and inform the public of the differences in scale of these two ventures if we are to continue to produce dimension stone, not only to conserve our existing historic stone structures but also to build new stone housing, thus complementing and continuing a vernacular building tradition which has developed over several centuries. These traditional skills  have provided us with some of our most picturesque villages and towns and provided many parts of Britain with a unique regional architectural identity. As far as Britain's building stone industry is concerned the catch phrase should be 'variety is the spice of life' we need to encourage usage of old and new stone in our buildings and not allow this rich heritage in stone to dwindle away.

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