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Bargate stone is a highly durable form of sandstone. It owes its yellow, butter or honey colouring to a high iron content. In some contexts it may be considered to be a form of ironstone. However, in the context of stone buildings local to the extraction of Bargate Stone, the term 'ironstone' is often used to refer to a darker stone, also extracted from the Greensand, which rusts to a brown colour.
Sources This stone was quarried for centuries in the Bargate Member of the Greensand Ridge, particularly where it is widest in south west Surrey, England. It occurs near the surface and was quarried in the hillsides near Godalming. Medieval quarries are still visible in Godalming, at the foot of Holloway Hill.
Bargate stone is rare in current use due to its short supply. Bath stone, Yorkstone and other similar coloured stone is sometimes used as alternatives, or to complement it.
Petrography Bargate stone is typically a mix of sandy bioclastic limestone and bioclastic sandstone. The intergranular cements comprise ferroan carbonate.
Use Bargate Stone is found in many buildings in Surrey, approximately 250 of which are listed, and in two churches in London.Advanced Search by text 'Bargate' less Bargate Farmhouse and Street/Lane/Bargate meaning road It is endemic to older buildings near the Greensand Ridge where it is found. Its 20th-century use tended towards coursed use of Bargate sandstone with bricks, or concrete, sometimes with ashlar dressings or mortar rendering.Pinewoods
Examples Early medieval
The Keep at Guildford Castle.The Castle Keep, Castle Hill (Guildford) It was a credit to the strength of Bargate that it was chosen for the main structure, standing on top of the natural chalk and Bargate stone bedrock, made it available by quarrying in the locality. Godalming Parish Church, Grade I listed assisted by Saxon features. Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Dunsfold St Nicholas's Church Compton, Guildford (Bargate rubble used, mortar-rendered)St Nicholas's Church, Compton Church of St. Mary the Virgin (12th-century tower only), Oxted in Tandridge District, east SurreyChurch of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxted St Mary's Church, (relevantly mostly in clunch from its own Quarry Street) Guildford St James's Church, Abinger All Saints Church, Witley, SurreyAll Saints, Witley
16th Century Tillingbourne Cottage, Wotton, Surrey
17th Century Cosford Mill, ThursleyCosford Mill
18th Century
Leith Hill TowerLeith Hill Tower
19th Century St Catherine's School/Drama Studio, GuildfordSt Catherine's 'School' St Stephen's Church, Gloucester Road, London (York stone parpoints and dressings in Bath stone)St Stephen's Church, Kensington St Nicholas's Church, GuildfordSt Nicholas's Church, Guildford St Michael's Church, York Town, CamberleySt Michaels Church, Camberley The Shah Jahan Mosque, completed in 1889 along with similar-coloured Bath stone, but a limestone not a sandstone Charterhouse School (completed 1872)Charterhouse School, Main Building Charterhouse School, Old Museum House St Stephen's Church, Rochester Row, WestminsterSt Stephen's Church Booker's Tower Munstead WoodMunstead Wood Chinthurst HillChinthurst Hill Grafham Grange School, BramleyGrafham Grange St James' Court, FarnhamSt James' Court St Johns Church, CaterhamSt John's Church, Caterham
20th Century The Pergola, Vann Park and Garden, HambledonPergola Pinewoods, Oxshott Tigbourne Court, Wormley (blocks with thin horizontal bands of tiles) Hascombe Court, HascombeHascombe Court Platform of war memorial, Bramshott, HampshireWar memorial platform, Bramshott St Tarcisius Church, Camberley — the War Memorial Church to the British Catholic army officers who died in World War I. North Lady Chapel has triple arches and a stone reredos depicting the Virgin and Child and angelsPergola Bath stone dressings Orchards by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, BramleyOrchards (park and garden)
See also Reigate Stone quarried from the Upper Greensand Formation in east Surrey
Notes and references Notes
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