Northamptonshire stone

If you travel through the countryside and visit some of the many villages of the county you will see many examples of the use of Northamptonshire stone, it is not a well known fact but many different types of stone were available to craftsmen.

The county at one time had many small quarries producing stone, and one point over forty existed but many of these diasappeared as mining for iron ore boomed.

John Morton writing in The Natural History of Northamptonshire, 1712:

“And no County in England affording a greater Variety of Quarry-Stone than this, or exceeding this in the Goodness and Plenty of it, upon that account it deserves a more particular consideration.”

‘Quarries: here of White Stone, there of Red; here of Freestone, there of Ragg.’ 

The most common for use in construction were Ironstone, brown sandstones and pendle limestones, and dustin slates

​www.emgs.org.uk/files/mercian_vol13on/Mercian%20Geologist%20volume%2016%202004-2007/Mercian%202005%20v16%20p148%20Northamptonshire%20buildings,%20Sutherland.pdf