Building stones of Manchester : New geological guide published

What is the connection between the Strategic Stone Study, a series of ‘Geotrail’ guides to the Ribble and Brun valleys in Lancashire, and the latest revision to the model city geology guide, A Building Stones Guide to Manchester? Jennifer Rhodes, Editor of North West Geologist, explained to NSS.

A Building Stones Guide to Central Manchester, ISBN 978-0-9928713-1-4, is published by Manchester Geological Association, supported by Burlington Stone Ltd and printed in Horwich, Bolton, by Easiprint Design & Print. Copies are available for £6 each plus £2.50 post & packaging (UK only, overseas rates will vary). They cannot currently be bought online, so to obtain a copy send an initial enquiry to [email protected]

When the original edition of A Building Stones Guide to Central Manchester was published 40 years ago it was the first publication to identify simply, for the benefit of the general public, the stones used in a city’s construction.

It was revised in the 1970s, but a lot of building has taken place in Manchester since then, so a new edition was needed and it became clear that a simple reprint of an updated 1970s edition would not suffice. A complete revision was needed.

Peter del Strother and Jennifer Rhodes, both active members of the Manchester Geological Association, volunteered to undertake the work.

Now that it has been completed and the new edition of the Guide published, Jennifer, who also edits North West Geologist, a collaboration between Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire geological societies, admits they had not realised in advance just what a mammoth task it would prove to be.

Peter and Jennifer have their fingers in several pies in both the Manchester Geological Association and GeoLancashire (the new name for the Lancashire Group of the Geologists’ Association) and were two of the five people from GeoLancashire who worked on the county’s contribution to the Strategic Stone Study.

The English Heritage-led Strategic Stone Study was carried out with the British Geological Survey (BGS) correlating the information that was gathered, often by local geological societies, and presenting it on the maps of a Geographical Information System (GIS) that is currently accessible free on the internet at bit.ly/SSS-BGS.

Gathering the information for the Strategic Stone Study began in earnest in 2008, starting with a number of pilot surveys to establish the methodology.

The aim of the study was to identify the sources of all stones used in construction throughout the UK, connecting the source with the buildings in which it appears. English Heritage initially allocated £500,000 for the project, much of it coming from the Department of Communities & Local Government. When the DCLG withdrew its financial support in 2011 the project came to halt. It remains unfinished, but a bid has been made by Historic England for more funds to complete it.

It has already made a major contribution to identifying the sources of stones used in the main regions of stone construction in England. It has also resulted in the compilation of some excellent county atlases identifying the geology and some of the significant buildings of the counties.

An objective of the study was to prevent sources of important building stones from becoming sterilised as a result of local authorities or planning appeals allowing the development of such sites for uses other than the production of stone.

Ideally, local planning authorities would check the BGS maps when planning applications are received and would protect areas where reserves of important natural stone have been identified.

Routine use of the resource has not entered planning authority culture, although the momentum for conserving sources of building stones seems to have been retained in the re-organisation of English Heritage that saw it split into two separate entities at the start of this month (April).

One of the new entities retains the name of English Heritage as the English Heritage Trust and is a charity intended to become self-financing that will manage the English Heritage historic properties and sites. The other is called Historic England, with the role of protecting the built heritage of the country and advising governments on heritage matters.

Of course, while planning authorities might not be making much use of the BGS Strategic Stone Study resource, it is also available to those objecting to planning applications as well.

It was while GeoLancashire was working on the Strategic Stone Study that it realised it could do more than run evening talks and field excursions about the geology of the area. That sparked work on the production of Ribble Valley and Brun Valley Geotrails, which Jennifer is also integrally involved with.

The Geotrails Pocket Guides unfold from A6 size into A3 size sheets of paper. They are also walks, with the routes shown on simple maps with the stone features that will be encountered along the way numbered and some information about them included. There is also information about the underlying geology of the areas.

These Geotrails are numbered one to 11. Numbers one to 10 are walks in the Ribble Valley, although numbers one to six only (covering Lancashire) have yet been published. Numbers seven to 10, covering the Yorkshire section of the Ribble Valley, have yet to be produced. Number 11 is a walk in the River Brun valley.

All the Geotrail guides can be downloaded from the GeoLancashire website at www.geolancashire.org.uk. The Ribble Valley Geotrails have at least one background document each to support them, which are also available from the website. The guide to the River Brun valley walk did not have a background document as this issue of Natural Stone Specialist went to press, but one is promised.

All the background papers are interesting, but one about lime kilns that explains clearly about lime mortar, hydraulic lime and cements, might be particularly interesting to NSS readers.

But back to A Building Stones Guide to Central Manchester.

The original Guide was compiled by geologists Dr Fred Broadhurst and Dr Morven Simpson. It became a model used by other towns and cities across the United Kingdom and abroad for their own guides to encourage visitors and residents to find out more about the stones that play such an important role in creating the significance of so many urban areas.

A Building Stones Guide to Central Manchester takes the form of four routes through the city centre, none of which is more than 2km long, so should be achievable by most people.

The routes are identified on maps that fold out from the inside of the front and back covers. Numbers on the maps refer to stone features in the city that are explained in the Guide. They are mostly buildings but include other uses of stone as well – such as Kan Yasuda’s Ishinki Touchstone, a public artwork in Carrara marble in Barbirolli Square, and the Welsh slate water feature in Exchange Square added as part of the reparation work following the IRA bombing there in 1996.

Even stone paving and setts are identified, as well as some of the fossils that can be seen – for example in the Hopton Wood and Ashburton limestones on the interior walls of the Town Hall Extension built in 1938.

The buildings included are not only those of historical significance, although such buildings are, of course, there. But modern buildings, which have used stones imported from all over the world, are also included in the Guide. A note is made of how construction methods have changed over the years and now mostly involve thin slabs of stone being used to clad steel-framed or reinforced concrete structures.

The Guide itself makes use of modern technology by including Quick Response (QR) codes that can be scanned on Smartphones to link to the Manchester Geological Association website for more information about the stones seen.

The Guide does not over use geological terms but any that it does include are explained in a glossary. There is also a brief appendix to identify geological time divisions and their ages and another identifying the rock types mentioned and where they can be found in the Guide.

A Building Stones Guide to Central Manchester, ISBN 978-0-9928713-1-4, is published by Manchester Geological Association, supported by Burlington Stone Ltd and printed in Horwich, Bolton, by Easiprint Design & Print. Copies are available for £6 each plus £2.50 post & packaging (UK only, overseas rates will vary). They cannot currently be bought online, so to obtain a copy send an initial enquiry to [email protected]