- Sarsen
Sarsen stones are stone blocks found in quantity on
Salisbury Plain , theMarlborough Downs , inKent , and in smaller quantities inBerkshire ,Oxfordshire ,Dorset andHampshire . They are the remains of a cap oftertiary sandstone which once covered much of southernEngland . It is a dense, hard rock created fromsand bound by asilica cement, making it a kind of silicified sandstone.Natural sarsen boulders created by glacial and
periglacial effects can be sometimes found scattered on the ground surface, moved bysolifluction ; the stone is also present in surviving outcrops of the rock.Human uses
The builders of
Stonehenge ,Avebury , and many othermegalith ic monuments in southern England chose to build with sarsen stones.From the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, sarsen megaliths in Europe were a target for destruction by both religious zealots and commercial enterprise. The stones were sometimes toppled, cleared from fields under cultivation, or broken up for reuse. Fire or explosives were sometimes employed to break the stone into pieces of a suitable size for use in construction. Sarsen is not an ideal building material however;
William Stukeley wrote that Sarsen is "always moist and dewy in winter which proves damp and unwholesome, and rots the furniture". In the case ofAvebury , the investors who backed a scheme to recycle the stone were bankrupted when the houses they built proved to be unsaleable and also prone to burning down. However despite these problems sarsen remained highly prized for its durability, being a favored material for steps andkerb stonesdn.References
ee also
*
Blowing Stone
*Fyfield Down
*Ashdown House, Oxfordshire External links
* [http://www.littleton.org.uk/sarsen.htm Sarsen at Littleton and Harestock, Hampshire]
* [http://www.cityofwinchester.co.uk/history/html/sarsens.html Sarsens catalogued at the City of Winchester, Hampshire]
* [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=3671 Picture of Sarsens on Fyfield Down, Wiltshire]
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