C O N T E X T 1 4 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 9 From Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1860 novel The Marble Faun To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman history, and Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, around the birth-time of Christianity, as well as the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember these mediaeval times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The reason may be, that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the subsequent ones. The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence and makes it look newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up among the former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter was begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Nature takes an English ruin to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has won the whole structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the barren sunshine, and leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, too, each succeeding century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the very ruins, so far as their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing away the marble and hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which never can look venerable. FIS, which represents companies in the Finishes and Interior sectors, has been working hard to develop a series of forms to help their customers assess the competency of fibrous plaster inspectors and contractors. The just half a dozen firms in the UK that can do this type of work now comprise the FIS Heritage Plastering Group. The forms referred to and the list of members can be obtained by emailing Robert Barker at robertbarker@thefis.org. In the September 2015 issue of Natural Stone Specialist Barry Hunt continues his examination of great British stones with the geological and quarrying history, properties, testing methods and uses of Purbeck limestone. His article lists 24 stone types named by quarrymen in descending order from the highest (youngest) to the lowest beds in the quarries (this list does not include other types of stone present, such as clays, shales and marls) within the sequence. Purbeck, which could be said to be the antecedent of the British marble industry, was used around 2,800 years ago for a bronze-age coffin near Swanage in Dorset, the area where all the quarries are now based. Purbeck is found extensively at Salisbury Cathedral, where 15,000 tonnes of stone were used, mainly for the flooring. Beds of the stone are rarely more than one metre thick and typically are in the order of 0.3 metres thick. Weathering along the bedding planes and joints often reduces the amount of material that can be extracted. Because the quarrying can be so haphazard, the stone is graded as it is quarried rather than there being a defined, predictable reserve of the different types of material present. Quality control for Purbeck is therefore very much down to the skill of the quarrying contractor. The October issue has a long article on the present state of stone cleaning techniques, and the compromises to be struck between the aesthetics of pristine stonework and the patina of age. There is much good technical advice available. This includes a brief outline of the history of stone cleaning literature to address past cleaning failures identified by Historic Scotland in 1989-1991; the first English Heritage Practical Building Conservation handbooks; and the very recent Conservation, Repair and Management ofWar Memorials by David Odgers, published in June this year. For stone specialists the article commends the recent Stone Restoration Handbook by Chris Daniels. Also useful are the references in the article to the current two-year Facade Preservation Apprenticeships. These are CITB courses run by StoneTrain, the training arm of the Stone Federation Great Britain. People with two or more years experience can obtain a Level 2 NVQ. The same issue examines growing support among the Welsh slatemining industry for Gwynedd County Council’s bid for world heritage status, which was greeted without much enthusiasm when first proposed in 2011. Since then the tourism potential of the Welsh slate industry is becoming much better appreciated. Bob Kindred MBE
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