Everything about Portland Stone totally explained
Portland stone is a
limestone from the
Jurassic period
quarried on the
Isle of Portland,
Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by
chert beds. It has been used extensively throughout the
British Isles, notably in major public buildings in
London such as
St Paul's Cathedral and
Buckingham Palace. It is also exported to many countries - Portland stone is used in the
United Nations headquarters building in
New York city, for example.
The term "
Portland Cement" was coined by
Joseph Aspdin who produced first in 1824 a hydraulic
binder by burning a mixture of limestone and
clay resembling the
Roman cement and presenting a texture very close to that of the
oolitic Portland stone.
All gravestones for
British personnel killed in the
First and
Second World Wars are made out of Portland stone. However, these began to
weather and detail such as the
regimental badges were becoming difficult to view. The
Commonwealth War Graves Commission began to use
botticino, a
white marble limestone, from about 1998. Portand
stone was used for the
£6 million memorial in
Staffordshire,
England, designed by
Liam O'Connor, that bears the names of over 16,000 service personnel who died since World War II.
Three main "Portland Beds" are quarried. The Base and
Portland Independent Top Whitbed beds are fine textured and contain few fossil remains, and so are popular for high quality work. The
Portland Admiralty Roach bed is rougher with many
fossils and its stone is notably used in
the Cobb, at nearby
Lyme Regis.
The
Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust
was formed in 1983. The Trust is dedicated to preserving a knowledge and understanding of stone and the
landscape from which it comes.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Portland Stone'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://portland_stone.totallyexplained.com">Portland stone Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
