Sussex Marble

West Sussex has a good concentration of relatively thin layers of 'Sussex Marble (also called Petworth Marble or Winklestone) within the Weald Clay, a freshwater limestone referred to as "marble" as it takes a polish. It is not a geologically described one as it has not been subject to metamorphosis. The matrix is made up from freshwater gastropods, "Vivaparus" winkles, similar but larger that those making Purbeck Marble - with the pale calcified remains of the shells in a matrix of darker material.

Historical use

In the early 1800s, Petworth Marble rivalled many of the stones which were routinely imported from the continent, in both beauty and quality. A kind of shell marble occurring in the Wealden clay at Petworth, its quarrying was concentrated on the Egremont estate at Kirdford and there are accounts of industry at nearby Plaistow.

It was used in several chimney pieces at Petworth House and further afield at Westminster Abbey in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, the tomb of Edward III and of Richard II and his Queen are both in “grey Petworth Marble” [The Saturday Magazine Supplement, May 1834 p.212] ; and Canterbury Cathedral, where the archbishops chair is an entire piece of the stone. [Useful Knowledge: Or A Familiar Account of the Various Productions of Nature: Animal, Vegetable and Mineral which are chiefly employed for the use of Man (1821) Volume I, William Bingley]

Embellishment of the Nave of Chichester Cathedral is in both Purbeck and Petworth marbles [Winkles’s Architectural and Picturesque Illustrations of the Cathedral Churches of England and Wales Volume II (1851) ] , the latter making up pillars of the upper triforium which even then showed 'some decomposition of the shelly particles'.

Present day

As the material is not in regular supply, much restoration of earlier Sussex Marble work takes place using Purbeck Marble, which is considered a more stable stone [pers.comm.(2008)Cathedral Works Organisation] .

The industry and workings are long gone although small new rural development around the Surrey/Sussex border occasionally brings up new seams of the stone. The qualities of the material are being rediscovered through British sculptors like Jon Edgar who, after a gap of nearly 200 years, are having to re-discover the ways of working it, its strengths and weaknesses.

References

Sussex Stones - The Story of Horsham Stone and Sussex Marble, Roger Birch (2005) ISBN 978-0955125904