"Purbeck Group The Purbeck Group is an Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) in south-east England. The name is derived from the district known as the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset where the strata are exposed in the cliffs west of Swanage. The Purbeck Group is famous for its fossils of reptiles and early mammals. This sequence of rocks has gone by various names in the past including amongst others the Purbeck Beds, Purbeck Formation, Purbeck Limestone Formation and Purbeck Stone. Rocks of this age have in the past been called the Purbeckian stage"
"tip of the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula bordered by the English Channel to the south, and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north and east. Since the 12th century, the area around Swanage has been well known for the Purbeck Marble that was mined locally and shipped out by sea. The presence of this industry, together with the Purbeck Ball Clay works in the area to the north, attracted railway promoters once the L&SWR main line reached Wareham in 1847. Several schemes were promoted and failed, but eventually the Swanage Railway received"
"the construction of important buildings both in the UK and around the world. Purbeck limestone is a building stone which is quarried on a small scale in the Isle of Purbeck. Purbeck marble, a particular type of Purbeck limestone, used to be quarried there but is now only occasionally extracted in small amounts for particular renovation projects. Purbeck ball clay is composed of kaolinite, mica and quartz. It is of sedimentary origin, having been formed during the Eocene epoch in the particular depositional environment of the then subtropical Wareham Basin. It is thus found today on the northern half of"
"such as Gillingham and Sherborne. A number of deer parks still remain in the county. The 12th and 13th centuries saw much prosperity in Dorset and the population grew substantially as a result. In order to provide the extra food required, additional land was enclosed for farming during this time. The quarrying of Purbeck Marble, a limestone that can be polished, brought wealth into the county and provided employment for stonecutters and masons. Large amounts of the stone were used in the construction of Salisbury Cathedral. The trade continues today but has declined since the 15th century when alabaster from"
"those making Purbeck Marble. The pale calcified remains of the shells are in a matrix of darker material. West Sussex has a good concentration of thin layers of Sussex Marble; beds typically measure no more than thick. There are often two beds—the lower formed of smaller-shelled gastropods than the upper—with a layer of calcareous clay between them. The Weald of Kent, near the Sussex border, was the centre of quarrying activity, as the material was most prevalent there. Yeomen who owned their own farms were usually involved. Bethersden village is surrounded by ""small reed-filled and tree-fringed ponds"" formed by the"
"chalk runs along the peninsula creating the Purbeck Hills, part of the Southern England Chalk Formation that includes Salisbury Plain, the Dorset Downs and the Isle of Wight. The cliffs here are some of the most spectacular in England, and of great geological interest, both for the rock types and variety of landforms, notably Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, and the coast is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site because of the unique geology. In the past quarrying of limestone was particularly concentrated around the western side of Swanage, the villages of Worth Matravers and Langton Matravers, and"
"covers an area of and contains considerable variety in its underlying geology, which is partly responsible for the diversity of landscape. A large percentage (66%) of the county comprises either chalk, clay or mixed sand and gravels. The remainder is less straightforward and includes Portland and Purbeck stone, other limestones, calcareous clays and shales.<ref name=""Draper 136/137""> Draper (pp. 136–137)</ref> Portland and Purbeck stone are of national importance as a building material and for restoring some of Britain's most famous landmarks. Almost every type of rock known from the Early Jurassic to the Eocene epochs can be found in the county."
"Furzebrook, Dorset Furzebrook is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is about south of Wareham and northwest of Corfe Castle, and is in the civil parish of Church Knowle. The name Furzebrook derives from the furze/gorse and a brook. The first use of the name was probably by Furzebrook Farm. Furzebrook became the centre of the clay industry as all the local Purbeck Ball Clay was taken there to ripen by exposing. The clay was repeatedly turned for six months. As the ball clay ripened it acquired"
"operated since 1793. It is on the Campaign for Real Ale's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors. It holds an annual week-long stone carving festival and accommodates a small museum exhibiting fossils and other local artefacts. Worth Matravers Worth Matravers () is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. The village is situated on the cliffs west of Swanage. It comprises limestone cottages and farm houses and is built around a pond, which is a regular feature on postcards of the Isle of Purbeck. The civil parish stretches from the coast northwards to, and just beyond,"
"eastern end of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. The town contains many listed buildings and two conservation areas – Swanage Conservation Area and Herston Conservation Area. While fishing is likely the town's oldest industry, quarrying has been important to the town and the local area since at least the 1st century AD. During the time of the Roman occupation this industry grew, with the distinctive Purbeck marble being used for decorative purposes in buildings as far away as London. When the Romans left Britain, quarrying largely ceased until the 12th century. The town is first mentioned in historical"
"Blue Pool, Dorset Blue Pool is a flooded, disused clay pit where Purbeck ball clay was once extracted. It is now a lake within the Furzebrook Estate, a park of heath woodland and gorse near Furzebrook on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset, southern England. Furzebrook Estate is about south of Wareham and west of Corfe Castle. The pool started life early in the 17th century as a chalk pit. Purbeck ball clay was dug from the pit from the mid-17th century to the early 20th century. The ball clay was used to make fine ceramic products,"
"of clay trapping surface water. These bogs support specialised plant species such as insectivorous sundews. Studland Studland is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It is famous for its beaches and nature reserve. It lies within the Purbeck administrative district, and is located about north of the town of Swanage, over a steep chalk ridge, and south of the South East Dorset conurbation at Sandbanks, but separated from it by Poole Harbour. The parish includes Brownsea Island within the harbour. In the 2011 census the parish had 182 households and"
"Purbeck marble and consists of a square bowl supported by a central drum and columns at the corners. The drum is carved on two sides with arcades, on one side with scallops, and on the other side with an interlocking pattern. The oak lectern dates from 1874.The stained glass in the east window is by Kempe, and depicts Saint Peter in chains, the Resurrection, and Saint John. Two bells hang from beneath the bellcote at the west end, one cast in about 1380 at Wokingham, and the other in 1627 by Ellis Knight of Reading. On the walls are memorials"
"world. The Isle of Purbeck is a broad peninsula in the south-east of the county, bounded by the English Channel to the south and east, and by Poole Harbour to the north. The chalk ridge of the Purbeck Hills traverses the middle of the peninsula from west to east. To the north of the ridge are several areas of heathland, which in many places have been excavated for Purbeck Ball Clay. The Purbeck coast is varied and contains sandy bays, headlands of chalk and limestone, and also shales and the small onshore oil well at Kimmeridge. The main settlement on"
"superficial cover, all the way across the Isle of Purbeck from Worbarrow Tout in the west to Peveril Point in the east. The marble beds are never more than 1.2 m thick and are often much thinner. The outcrops lie within the Purbeck Monocline, with the beds dipping moderately steeply to the north. There is a single example of Purbeck Marble being used during the Bronze Age, in a cist at Langton Matravers. During the Romano-British period, Purbeck Marble was used for inscriptions, architectural mouldings and veneers, mortars and pestles, and other articles. Purbeck Marble was also quarried in medieval"
"of the Isle of Purbeck, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester. The northern headland of the bay is formed of chalk, the southern of Purbeck Limestone, with softer primarily Wealden clays forming the bay and valley in which the town is sited. The Purbeck limestone was extensively quarried with several sites to the south west showing evidence of former quarries, particularly Tilly Whim Caves and Dancing Ledge, a man made rock shelf used for loading ships. Natural erosion has formed stacks along and at the end of the northern headland, in particular the notable Old Harry Rocks. In"
"marina. Ridge, Dorset Ridge is a village in the English county of Dorset. It is situated on the south bank of the River Frome, about half a mile due south east of the town of Wareham. Ridge forms part of the civil parish of Arne, within the Purbeck local government district. A wharf on the River Frome at Ridge was once a major transhipment point for Purbeck Ball Clay. The clay was brought to the wharf by the Furzebrook Railway, and transferred to barges for the voyage to Poole Harbour. The railway is now abandoned, and the wharf has become"
"Purbeck and Weymouth areas. A thick layer of Chert gravel from the Purbeck Strata can be found on Blackdown Hill near Portesham, but it is not known whether it was carried there or whether it is the remains of an earlier deposit. Blocks of Quartzite can be found across the downlands of Southern Dorset and these sarsons have been used in some of the local prehistoric monuments. To the north and east of the county, much finer sands and gravels are found, including ball clay which was widely mined on the heaths around Wareham. The fine particles which make up"
"and the Upper Greensand. The Wealden Group is overlain by the Chalk Group, which is subdivided into the White Chalk Subgroup and the Grey Chalk Subgroup. Each of the subgroups is in turn subdivided to formation level. The oldest exposed rocks in the county are the Purbeck Beds or more formally the Purbeck Group, which are of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous age. The Purbeck Beds outcrop at three locations north and northwest west of Battle, East Sussex and at Netherfield. They also occur at several other locations east of Heathfield, East Sussex and at Beak's Wood near Burwash. The"
"horse to wharves on the River Frome and the south side of Poole Harbour. However, in the first half of the 19th century the pack horses were replaced by horse-drawn tramways. With the coming of the railway from Wareham to Swanage, most ball clay was dispatched by rail, often to the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Quarrying still takes place on Purbeck, with both Purbeck Ball Clay and limestones being transported from the area by road. There are now no functioning quarries of Purbeck Marble. The Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum displays an exhibition about ball clays, mining and the associated"
"Sussex Marble Sussex Marble is a fossiliferous freshwater limestone material which is prevalent in the Weald Clay of parts of Kent, East Sussex and West Sussex in southeast England. It is also called Petworth Marble, Bethersden Marble or Laughton Stone in relation to villages where it was quarried, and another alternative name is winklestone. It is referred to as ""marble"" as it polishes very well, although it is not a geologically described one as it has not been subject to metamorphosis. The matrix is made up of the shells of freshwater gastropods and ""viviparus"" winkles, similar to but larger than"
"as have memorial tablets and parts of tombs. Sussex churches with Sussex Marble fonts include St George's at Trotton, St Peter's at Ardingly and St Mary's at West Chiltington. The lychgate at St Mary Magdalene's Church, Bolney, given to the church in 1905, stands on a base of Sussex Marble. 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. An example of this practice occurred as early as 1870, when the font at St Margaret's Church in West Hoathly had to be"
"Pinchbeck, Lincolnshire Pinchbeck is a village and civil parish in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. The civil parish population was 5,153 at the 2001 census, increasing to 5,455 at the 2011 census. It is situated north from the centre of Spalding. The name Pinchbeck is derived from either the Old English ""pinc+bece"" (Minnow Stream) or ""pinca+bece"" (Finch Ridge). A family long associated with the area took its name from the village, one member of which was Christopher Pinchbeck, a watchmaker responsible for the invention of the Pinchbeck alloy, which was once used for imitating gold in cheap jewellery."
"one of the village's cottages into his short story """"The Duke's Reappearance"""". Melbury Osmond Melbury Osmond is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies in the West Dorset administrative district, about south of the Somerset town of Yeovil. The underlying geology is Cornbrash limestone, with adjacent Oxford clay. Within the clay can be found deposits of stone which can take on a very high polish, earning them the name ""Melbury marble"". The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as a possession of the Arundell family, and remained so until the 19th"
"Purbrook Purbrook is a village and local government sub-division located in Hampshire, England. Purbrook is on the outskirts of Waterlooville just North of the Portsmouth city Boundary. Purbrook village is part of Purbrook Ward which also includes Widley and Crookhorn and has a population of 9,281(2001), taking up 7.7% of Havant borough's population. Waterlooville and Cowplain did not exist before the year 1815. Before then the area was part of the Forest of Bere, which stretched from the border of Sussex to Winchester. Now the Forest of Bere is a mixture of woodland, open space, heathland, and farmland that includes"
"Purbeck is the coastal resort town of Swanage. Poole Harbour is a large but shallow natural harbour in the south-east of the county, to the north of the Isle of Purbeck and to the west of the South East Dorset conurbation. It is one of the world's larger natural harbours, covering 14 square miles. It was formed about 6,000 years ago after the last Ice Age, as a rising sea-level flooded the valleys of the rivers Frome and Piddle, which now flow into the harbour from the west. The harbour's entrance, on its eastern side between the Sandbanks peninsula and"
"spot the Dartford warbler or the nightjar. Both of Britain's endangered and protected reptiles, the green sand lizard and the smooth snake, live here in considerable numbers. There are also many dragonflies and the rare Sika deer. Blue Pool, Dorset Blue Pool is a flooded, disused clay pit where Purbeck ball clay was once extracted. It is now a lake within the Furzebrook Estate, a park of heath woodland and gorse near Furzebrook on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset, southern England. Furzebrook Estate is about south of Wareham and west of Corfe Castle. The pool started"
"Swanage Pier Tramway The Swanage Pier Tramway was a narrow gauge tramway in the port town of Swanage, in the English county of Dorset. It opened about 1858 and closed in the 1930s. From the 12th century, the Swanage area was well known for the quarrying of Purbeck Marble, actually a hard wearing form of limestone. Much of this was shipped out through Swanage, originally being loaded into small vessels from horse carts driven into the waters of Swanage Bay. In 1858 a pier, now known as the ""Old Pier"", was built in deeper water and linked to the stone"
"Peveril Point Peveril Point is a promontory on the east-facing coast of the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England, and is part of the town of Swanage. It forms the southern end of Swanage Bay. It is located at OS Grid Ref: SZ 041 787. The rocks that make up Peveril Point are shale and Portland and Purbeck limestone in a syncline structure. This has resisted erosion more than the adjacent clay of Swanage Bay; whilst the clay has eroded away over time, the limestone has remained as a promontory. On top of Peveril Point is a National Coastwatch Institution"
"Salisbury via Weymouth and Yeovil. Corfe Castle is now on a built railway line connecting Wareham and Norden but only certain services continue to Wareham. Corfe Castle lies in the centre of the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula bordered by the English Channel to the south, and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north and east. At the beginning of the 19th century, the area around Corfe Castle was known for its supply of Purbeck Ball Clay, which at that time was shipped by a pair of horse-drawn tramways (the Middlebere Plateway and"
"the Isle of Purbeck, to the north of the Purbeck Hills, and is used in the production of fine pottery. It has been quarried on a large scale since the middle of the 18th century; Dorset's first railway was constructed in 1806 in order to transport the excavated material. It is still being excavated today. Geography of Dorset Dorset is a county located in the middle of the south coast of England. It lies between the latitudes 50.512°N and 51.081°N and the longitudes 1.682°W and 2.958°W, and occupies an area of 2,653 km² (1,024 sq mi). It spans from east"
"before settling in low-lying basins to form overlaying seams of ball clay. Ball clays usually contain three dominant minerals: from 20–80% kaolinite, 10–25% mica, and 6–65% quartz. In addition, there are other 'accessory' minerals and some carbonaceous material (derived from ancient plants) present. Purbeck Ball Clay has been used for thousands of years, but large scale commercial extraction began in the middle of the 18th century and continues today. The principal workings were in the area between Corfe Castle and Wareham. Originally the clay was taken by pack horse to wharves on the River Frome and the south side of"
"Ballard Down Ballard Down is an area of chalk downland on the Purbeck Hills in the English county of Dorset. The hills meet the English Channel here, and Ballard Down forms a headland, Ballard Point, between Studland Bay to the north and Swanage Bay to the south. The chalk here forms part of a system of chalk downlands in southern England, and once formed a continuous ridge between what is now west Dorset and the present day Isle of Wight. Old Harry Rocks, just offshore from the dip slope of the down, and The Needles on the westernmost tip of"