There is very little in the way of minerals in the rock or soil of the
county. Bands of ironstone are found in the Lower Greensand formation,
and it appears to have been worked near Faringdon. A group of small
hollows to the east of Little Coxwell are known as Cole's Pits and
were probably dug to get the iron ore.
Two chalybeate springs at Sunninghill were at one time quite well
known.
Whiting or whitening has for a long time been manufactured at
Kintbury from soft chalk which is dug there. A layer in the Reading
Beds at Reading used to be dug as fuller's earth for the clothiers
of that town.
Before the Norman conquest most of the buildings in the county were
of wood, and of course wood has been very largely used in buildings
at all times. Splendid examples of hewn timber-work may be seen in
many of our churches and other buildings. There is for example some
very fine old timber in the Canon's Cloisters at Windsor Castle.
Brick was a building material in the time of the Romans and its use
was most probably never wholly discontinued. In Tudor times many of
the buildings were of brick and timber, and picturesque brick and
timber structures of various dates will be found in all parts of our
county. The gallery at Christ's Hospital, Abingdon, shown on the next
page, is a good example.
All the clay formations in Berkshire have been used for brick and tile
making. The works at Katesgrove and other places on the banks of the
Kennet at Reading are very old and certainly go back to the sixteenth
century. In 1901 there were 1029 men and 35 women engaged in brick,
cement, pottery, and like works in Berkshire.
The limestone rocks of the Corallian formation have been much quarried
in the district between Faringdon and the river Thames near Oxford,
and the stone has been used in buildings of all ages.
Chalk has also been extensively quarried for building purposes. There
is a great deal of chalk in the walls of the Dean's Cloisters and
also in other parts of Windsor Castle. Chalk frame-work may be seen
in many church windows, at Old Windsor and Bray for instance. At
Waltham St Lawrence there is a very curious example, for some flints
are actually left in the chalk mullions of the east window of the
north chantry. It may be of interest to mention that in the valley
of the Seine in northern France chalk has been extensively used as
a building stone--in some of the best buildings at Rouen for example.
Flints from the chalk are much used as building-material in Berkshire;
they are employed fixed in concrete to form the core of walls,
as at Reading Abbey, and as facing to walls with stone corners and
window-frames. Shottesbrooke Church is faced with beautifully dressed
little flints. In other churches the flints are not squared but in
the rough state. At St Mary's Church, Reading, there is building of
a chess-board pattern, one set of squares being stone and the others
formed of small dressed flints. Another example of this chequer-work
is shown in the view of the church at White Waltham here given.
The hard sandstone which has been derived from the Eocene strata and
is termed "sarsen" (see p. 40) is an important Berkshire building
stone. There is a great deal of it in the walls all over Windsor
Castle, several of the towers and walls being faced with sarsen.
In some of the Berkshire gravel beds there is a hard irony
conglomerate, and this has been used as a building material. There
is a good deal in the tower of St Giles Church, Reading, and in the
parish church at Wokingham.
There are many building-materials used in the county which have been
brought from other districts, but this chapter only deals with things
found in Berkshire itself.
Chalk was formerly used to a large extent for chalking the soil, but
the practice has now almost fallen into disuse, and in consequence
one sees abandoned chalk pits all over the chalk district. The reasons
for giving up chalking are the increase in the cost of labour and the
decrease in the value of corn crops, together with the much larger use
of artificial manures. The fertility of many farms now is nevertheless
due to the liming and chalking of old days, and it is to be regretted
that the practice has been abandoned to so great an extent.