Our picturesque Cotswold stone

The Cotswolds are limestone country, part of a great swathe that stretches across the country from Dorset to Yorkshire.

Stone has been quarried here for centuries and for a variety of uses, everything from small farm buildings to the magnificent  churches. Its easy workable texture enabled masons to produce interesting and intricate architectural details such as gargoyles, mullions, and churchyard monumnets. These can still be discovered today all over the Cotswolds.

Some limestone occurs in thin layers, making

it easy to split into roof tiles; these “slates” are graded on most roofs, the largest tiles nearest the eaves, the smaller toward the ridge.  In this way the character of a Cotswold building is formed – stone used for walls, floors and roof.

The colour of Cotswold stone varies, from the pearly white stone associated with Bath through the golden stone of the central area down to the honey colouring of the north and north east of the region, .  Cotswold stone masons could tell the source of the stone they used