Frostley Marble

From Durham, UK

Limestone has been quarried from the valley sides around Frosterley since the 12th century but it was in the 1800s that the village became an important centre for limestone quarrying. Limestone has many uses - as a roadstone, agricultural lime, for flux in the iron and steel industry and for cement. A special type of limestone is found in Frosterley; this fossil-rich stone, known as Frosterley marble, can be polished to a high shine. Technically, it is not a proper marble. Marble is formed when limestone is heated or subjected to pressure (or both) which causes it to recrystallize into marble. This limestone has not been altered in this way. It is the white fossils, from a tropical seabed of 325 million years ago, encapsulated within the dark grained limestone which make this such a decorative stone. The earliest known reference to the rock is via ‘Lambert the marble cutter’ who is mentioned in the Bolden Book, a northern version of the Domesday Book commissioned by Bishop Hugh de Puiset in 1183