In this room again it is the fireplace which is of interest. It is in keeping with the style of the room with an oak surround to match the high status fixtures for the master of the house. The fireplace has man-made rocks i.e. bricks as the hearth. These are fire bricks and will have […]

The fireplace on the west wall is a fine example of a marble. In this country stone masons call a limestone which takes a polish a marble but this is not scientific accuracy but colloquial use. However this is an imported red marble possibly from Italy. It shows good calcite veining and secondary calcite (CaCO3) […]

The floor of the porch and indeed the hallway is made of man-made tiles. These have been made from clay originally and fired to high temperatures before being decorated to form an elegant pattern in lieu of carpets. The step into the house has been weathered by humans – a feature we will see reoccurring […]

The outside of the porch is built of a coarse to very coarse (1 mm) local Carboniferous 340 million year old sandstone. You can see the individual quartz (SiO2) grains up to 2 cm with a hand lens. Graded bedding can also be seen: the grain sizes are not all the same, they are a […]