Building London – what London is made from and where it came from!

Lamorna or Lands End granite comes from 3 quarries past Penzance in Cornwall, a few miles before the Lands End and on the ‘Land’s End pluton’ or igneous intrusion that gave rise to granite. It is classified, apparently as a ” … typical Cornubian abundantly megacrystic biotite granite.” [ 1 ] Ruth Siddel states ” […]

When John Rennie’s London Bridge of 1831 was famously sold to an American in the late 1960s to be later rebuilt at Lake Tavasu in Arizona, not all the bridge made the journey back to Devon whence it had come, then across the world to Arizona. Some of the bridge still stands on the south […]

Foggintor Quarry is a sister quarry to Swelltor [ see previous blog post ] . I can find nowhere a suggestion of the meaning of Foggintor but it seems like it would refer to the dreadful mists or fogs that descend on Dartmoor even in the height of summer. So beware! https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/enjoy-dartmoor/planning-your-visit/safety-advice-for-outdoor-activitiesFoggintor seems to have […]

High up on top of Dartmoor, very beautiful in summer and very bleak in winter, no more than I mile from the grim Dartmoor Prison, lies a group of large pieces of granite that once upon a time were destined for London. These blocks of granite, corbels, [ stone struts ] were destined to be […]

Hi! My name is Glyn Harries and this last couple of years I’ve developed a keen interest in what London is, and was, made from, the bricks, the stones, the wood, the concrete and artificial stone, the metal and all the rest, and more so, where it, or they, all came from. So the brickpits […]