91. Purbeck Marble
90. Leaving Living In Boxes
October 3, 2024
92. Gathering Winter Fuel
December 5, 2024
A lmost everything I know about local stone I learned first from Treleven Haysom. Before we both started at Swanage Grammar School to me stone was simply stone and marble something flawlessly white. We soon became friends. Born of generations of quarriers and masons, stone was never stone to him: there was a whole vocabulary, of which I only acquired a fraction, but stone was never again just stone. As for marble, it was what passed for marble in Purbeck, not its scientific identity of metamorphised rock but a sedimentary rock rich in the fossils of a pond snail once known as Paludina but now as Viviparus. Often there were also Unio shells, larger lamellibranchs. Purbeck marble designates a hard limestone taking a fine polish and ranges in colour from a deep blue-grey to variants tending towards green or red.
My education began with a fragment Trev picked up as we walked over East Man, a hill overlooking the cliff coast. To him it was a piece of rag, a hard, little used bed. That was the first name of a Purbeck bed I learned, many would follow but I reached certainty with few. There were so many beds, each laid down in fresh or brackish waters, but it was the marble that brought fame to Purbeck. The Romans had worked it for pestles and mortars, for inscribed gravestones and decorative purposes. It rose to dominate English ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Ages, peaking in the 13th century. The juxtaposition of light and dark limestones had been popularised in mediaeval Belgium where near-black carboniferous limestone from Tournai was used for contrast in churches of light-coloured limestone. Dark Purbeck marble allowed that fashion to flourish in England using native material.
Trev’s father, Walter (but always ‘Mr Haysom’ to a fifties schoolboy), acquired a monopoly in postwar marble restoration work. In the mid-fifties his biggest, most exacting marble project was the reconstruction of London’s Temple Church, victim of wartime fire bombing. Dug below Purbeck’s Kingston, the marble he used was the first I came across. A fragment of it remains on my desk. Bird-watching, Trev and I shared a battered pair of prismatic binoculars my father picked up during the war. The prisms, knocked slightly out of alignment, doubled our vision. Seeking something better, stronger, Trev raised money by selling ashtrays he made out of waste fragments from the temple Church job. The inner bowl and its rim were polished on a lathe; he left the sides rough and glued green baize to the bottom. Everyone smoked then, including my parents, so I bought them one for Christmas. It set me back 7/6 in the non-decimal currency of the time: three-eighths of a £ - that’s 35 pence or ¾ of my weekly pay for a paper-round. Few folk flick ash into it now.
The binoculars? He raised the cash and bought a powerful pair of Liebermann and Gortz glasses. We had a lot to learn. They soon proved unwieldy, too long and powerful to hold steady. Smaller, smarter, neater ones were to follow. Later I shaped and polished a piece of marble for a pendant. Too large and heavy to wear, it became a lucky charm, always carried on my travels. Fifty years ago, Suresh, a friend from Haryana, asked for it. Generously, I handed it over, only to pinch it back before leaving his place. One shouldn’t toy with lucky charms. So it, too, survives here.
From the 12th to the 15th centuries, Purbeck prospered as an important industrial area. Along the valley’s southern flank from Peveril to Kingston were marble quarries and from them must have radiated blue clay tracks which coalesced on Corfe, the heart of the industry. Much of the initial shaping of block took place beside the quarries, reducing the weight of material to be carried away. The finer work probably took place in Corfe then, according to tradition, then it was carried across the heath to Ower, to be shipped to its destination. Speculation is rich, but written details of the industry are few. There is no mention of Swanage as a marble port but it seems obvious that the south west corner of its bay, sheltered from prevailing winds and close to major sources of marble at Peveril, Swanage and Herston, would also have been used. Certainly, Swanage dominated the later Purbeck stone trade.
In recent years, with improved technology, marine archaeology has made big advances. Divers explore in search of treasure and adventure. In the 1970s, they discovered a late 18th century stone-bearing wreck in Studland Bay. Trev wanted some of the cargo of Purbeck stone paving. As it was raised by winch, we stacked it aboard, eating oysters from each stone as it emerged. Since then, other, earlier wrecks have appeared. One off Denmark bore a load of Purbeck marble mortars. Most recently, another 13th century wreck, along with mortars, carried several traditional marble tomb tops, each decorated with an ornate raised cross. This cargo is due for display in Poole Museum, but not until Spring 2025.
While travelling around England, I checked churches for Purbeck marble as Trev built up an index of sites. It was soon apparent that most mediaeval English churches offered something. I grew to expect it in little, old churches everywhere. Sometimes there was a square or octagonal marble font, often ledgers set in the floor, some with inset brasses or, more frequently, the recess where the brasses had been removed. This gave only a rough idea of Purbeck marble’s ubiquity in the country because Victorian reconstruction removed old paving or replaced damaged fonts.
Much has survived. There are fine marble royal tombs in Westminster Abbey, a mass of Purbeck marble not only in Salisbury Cathedral but also in Lincoln. Almost all English cathedrals offer marble work. Some buildings surprised me. The hall of London’s Victorian Law Courts, where I was summoned as a witness in a dispute over the Dunshay Estate, proved to be decorated with a hundred, metre-long Purbeck marble shafts. But there is more recent marblework. My wood-burner stands on two pieces of green marble, which I chose, cut and polished for the hearth. That marble came from the digging at Quarr Farm, shown here. Sadly, in my absence, it was fitted carelessly, the builder transforming a barely visible joint into the hideous 1 cm stripe of cement shown in the photograph.
[Treleven Haysom’s recent book, Purbeck Stone, is the authority on this subject.]
