Sussex Marble - Historical Use

Historical Use

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 filling over time of old marble workings. In the area, the Perpendicular Gothic towers of the parish churches of Biddenden, Headcorn, Smarden and Tenterden, pavements and paths in Staplehurst, and an inn next to Pluckley railway station all use the material.

In the early 19th century, Sussex Marble quarried at Petworth 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, 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 in Edward the Confessor's Chapel in Westminster Abbey the tombs of Edward III and of Richard II and his Queen are both in "grey Petworth Marble". At Canterbury Cathedral the Archbishop's chair is an entire piece of the stone. Embellishment of the nave of Chichester Cathedral is in both Purbeck and Petworth Marbles; the latter was used for the pillars of the upper triforium which even then showed "some decomposition of the shelly particles". Church fittings such as altars, rails, piers and floors have been made from the material, 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.