Context 154 - May 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 8 15 LIME AND STONE roofing stone that they consider should be safeguarded from other forms of development.’ The current National Planning Policy Framework (2012) also encourages identification and safeguarding of natural stone resources. Paragraph 143 states that local planning authorities should ‘identify and include policies for extraction of mineral resource of local and national importance in their area’ and ‘define minerals safeguarding areas and adopt appropriate policies in order that known locations of specific minerals resources of local and national importance are not needlessly sterilised by non-mineral development, whilst not creat- ing a presumption that resources defined will be worked’. The Strategic Stone Study (SSS) aims to address these issues by undertaking a county-by-county, nationwide survey to identify the building stones used, and map their sources (active, dormant and historic quarries within England) and representative buildings and structures, and collating them in one online resource. Historic England is funding the work and has commis- sioned the British Geological Survey and local geological and historic buildings experts who have completed 39 of the 48 English counties (using the pre-1974 boundaries). So far 3,928 building stones, 12,491 building-stone quar- ries, and 17,658 indicative stone structures (including 1,254 predominantly stone villages) have been identified. Initially the survey began with a commission from Historic England for the British Geological Survey to expand its database of quarries, mines and other mineral workings in the UK (BRITPITS) to accommodate data on building stone resources and the stone built heritage of England creating the English Building Stone Pits (EBSPits) database.The SSS augments this information by supplementing it with expert knowledge and fieldwork to populate three data sets: building stones, their sources, and representative buildings and structures. The data sets from the SSS are uploaded to the EBSPits database, where they can be individually viewed and downloaded, county by county. Each entry of the data sets includes substantial details. For example, each building stone entry within the building stones data sets includes geological and petrographic descriptions, identifying features, weathering characteristics and common uses of the stone, known or likely sources, and representative buildings. The source’s data set includes each quarry location, the stones quarried from it and its status (active/ inactive/ceased). Each representative building and struc- ture entry in the buildings data set lists the building stones used to construct it and citations for further reference. The data sets are interlinked within the EBSPits database so that this information can be interrogated through the interactive Geographical Information System (GIS) web portal.Within this, the quarries and buildings are plotted on a map with geographical and geological layers (which can be modified to adjust transparency to make either more visible). Here website visitors can run a query to search the locality of a building or quarry location to identify nearby sources or representative buildings, respectively (the search can be extended in radii measured in kilometres). A specific location and underlying geology can be explored. This interactive search allows the user to get a clearer indication of the distribution and relationship between stone-built structures and their former or currently The Old Manor House, Upper Lambourn, Berkshire. Here sarsen stone sourced nearby is the dominant stone. Each county atlas produced from the Strategic Stone Study is highly illustrated with images of representative stone structures. Berkshire is the latest county to have been completed. (Photo: Geckoella, © Historic England)