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The ready availability of limestone in the Cotswolds had made it
a convenient building material since at least Roman times. Corsham
sits on the Greater Oolitic Seam which, since it extends in about
a 20-mile radius of Bath, has been termed ‘Bath Stone’.
This stone differs from the Cotswold seams further north by having
a lower ironstone content which makes it lighter in colour. It is
also less likely to crumble so is suitable for producing large blocks.
Corsham’s High Street is lined with Bath Stone buildings,
of which Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83), the renowned architectural
historian, wrote, “Corsham has no match in Wiltshire for wealth
of good houses”. Praise indeed, given the rich architecture
of so many of the county’s towns.
Until the 19th Century, the Corsham area had been quarried chiefly
for local use. The construction of the Box Hill railway tunnel by
the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, however, brought with
it new ways of transporting stone further afield just as, coincidentally,
huge new deposits were discovered. So much stone was now being shipped
that Bath Stone was sometimes also known as Corsham Stone.
After the First World War, the expense of extracting stone, along
with the development of other, cheaper, building materials almost
brought quarrying for Bath Stone to an end, but the renewed interest
in conservation and building design has seen high quality limestone
back in demand. Quarries are being worked again, not only in the
Corsham area, but also at Limpley Stoke near Bath.
During the First and Second World Wars, abandoned underground stone
quarries at Box Hill were used to store ammunition. In the 1950s,
part of the 35-acre Spring Quarry was developed as a central Government
War Headquarters site. In the event of a nuclear strike, this was
where the government would retreat. Code-named ‘Burlington’,
the radiation-proof bunker, 100 feet underground, consisted of a
street with Whitehall ministries on each side and even included
the Rose and Crown pub. The facility was decommissioned in the early
1990s and declassified at the end of 2004.
Another legacy of the age of stone quarrying is a network of footpaths
still criss-crossing the town, which trace the routes taken by the
workers on their daily journeys from the surrounding villages to
the various quarries in and around Corsham and home again.
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