Building stone
Except in some of the coastal valleys there is not much stone just lying around on Exmoor. In many parts of upland Britain the loose stones that were lying on the ground were used to make the stone walls surrounding fields. On Exmoor most stone has to be dug out and fields tend to be surrounded by earth banks that are faced with small stones because stones of suitable size and shape for building walls are not available.
This wall at Holloway Street, Minehead, shows a variety of local building materials: it is built on New Red Sandstone and contains a few stones of similar material; the purple and dark grey stones are Old Red Sandstone, some of which are beach cobbles; the light grey stones are Blue Lias; there are also local bricks and lime mortar.
Sandstones
Most of Exmoor's older buildings are made of the local Devonian or 'Old Red' Sandstone. This varies greatly in hardness but it is generally incapable of being dressed to give a smooth surface and is used in rubble or ragwork construction. This makes it difficult to give straight edges to buildings and many old Exmoor buildings show rounded corners, pillars and chimney stacks. It was used in preference to other stone as transporting such heavy materials was difficult and expensive, particularly up until the mid 19th cenury. Until that time Exmoor roads were generally incapable of taking wheeled traffic and goods were mostly carried on horseback or brought in by sea. For this reason much stone was dug from small pits near to where it was needed, particularly where it was used for dry stone walls or ditching (facing hedgebanks). There were larger quarries in some places, such as at Dunster (SS993442); Timberscombe (SS958420) and Lynton (SS713494). The latter was in grey standstone beds in the Lynton Formation. At Minehead and around Porlock Bay walls were often built with sandstone beach cobbles, many of which were simply split in two to provide a relatively flat exterior face.
Old Red Sandstone beach cobbles in a monastic building in central Minehead
To the east of Exmoor the Triassic or 'New Red' Sandstones were also worked for building stone. These are not as hard as the Devonian sandstones but can be trimmed into regular shapes more easily. The warm, reddish brown sandstone from Staunton Quarry at Alcombe has been widely used in walls and buildings in Minehead. There were sandstone quarries in the town, including one near St Michael's Church. The Mercia Mudstones also contain some beds of sandstone. These were quarried at Burrowhayes, West Luccombe, for buildings in Porlock and Minehead. These softer sandstones tend to be porous and do not weather well, crumbling easily, especially after frost.
There are no active quarries now in the National Park and new stone buildings are mostly made from recycled stone or Carboniferous sandstone from quarries to the south of the moor. There were several large quarries in the Exe valley to the south of Bampton, around Landkey and in the Bray valley, where there are still active quarries, mainly for roadstone. The Exmoor area contains large reserves of hard sandstones suitable for road chippings.
Dendrites: attractive mineral growths on the Carboniferous sandstone facing the National Park Centre at Dunster
Limestones
For more important buildings imported limestone was often used for the quoins (corner pieces), openings and chimneys. Much of this came from South Somerset, the Mendips and around Bath. Much of the carved stonework inside churches, such as the piers, columns, capitals and arcades, was made of such stone. The richer, more orange-coloured limestone from Ham Hill near Montacute was used in the tower of Old Cleeve church, in Methodist Chapels and some other public buildings. There is some local limestone and blue lias from Selworthy was used for the quoins of St Michael's church at Minehead. The same stone from the Quantock coast was used in parts of Cleeve Abbey and some of the churches of the Brendon Hills. It is quite commonly seen in kerbstones. A limestone figure at Old Cleeve church is from the underground quarries at Beer in south Devon. Some of the limestone from Beer was carved at Exeter but much was carved underground at Beer. Beer limestone is relatively soft and easily carved underground, where it is damp, but sets like concrete when it dries out. Some of these limestones were used to make a type of cement that could be set in moulds to make building blocks and a cheaper alternative to carved stone.
Limestone: Ham Stone in the Nat West bank building at Minehead
There were also limestone quarries in the Ilfracombe Beds of the Devonian period at Combe Martin, Exford, Wheddon Cross, Luxborough and Roadwater but these were for the production of burnt lime for mortar or spreading on fields. The mortar for older buildings was produced locally. Much of this was simply cob: the clayey sub-soil bound with straw or hair and often combined with lime. The ash from the burning of lime was often used as a form of concrete for flooring. Limestone for burning was also imported in large quantities from the coast of South Wales. At one time there were 18 kilns at Combe Martin, burning both local and Welsh lime. Much was taken by horse and cart for use during the reclamation of the moorland of Exmoor Forest by the Knight family.
The Triassic rocks to the east of Exmoor were also dug for lime. At Alcombe quarry, near Minehead, the quarrymen picked out pebbles of limestone from the conglomerate there for burning. Between Wydon and Woodcombe, also near Minehead, there were marl pits. Marl is a limey clay and was probably spread straight on the fields. At Gillhams Quarry near Luccombe (SS919444) a thick vein of calcite was also worked for lime. Although a beautiful stone, the alabaster at Watchet has been used little in local buildings. It is in narrow bands and does not usually form large blocks that can be cut. However, the font at Elworthy church appears to be made of this stone. The effigies at Porlock and Dunster churches are made from alabaster from Chellaston in Derbyshire.
Slates
Slate is common locally but very variable in terms of its potential for building. Locals tend to call all such rocks that break into flat layers 'shillet'. Many local rocks have been given what is known as a 'slaty cleavage' through the pressures of past earth movements. Some slate is fine grained and other slate is more of a slaty sandstone. Much is more like shale and too soft for building. Around Exmoor Forest there was little choice but to use slates for building and the Knight family used this local material for their new farmsteads and cottages in the 19th century. This was not suitable for roofing and they still had to import slate from Wales for that purpose.
Some of the harder, fine-grained slates are suitable for roofing materials. The quarries at Treborough were well known locally for such material and were worked from the 15th century until 1938. Some of the workings there were underground and limestone was also worked. More recently, Cornish slate was used for many local buildings. Delabole Slate has been used as a building material for well over 600 years, and has been quarried continuously since the early 17th century. The slate was cut and hauled to Port Gaverne where it would be loaded onto vessels, which visited not only the rest of the West Country coast but also other parts of Europe. The main quarry is still worked and Exmoor roofs can be repaired in new slate. Through use of modern machinery, today five men produce the same amount of slate that was once produced by a thousand. Unfortunately, the slate is still expensive compared with imported slate of a similar colour. Where natural slate is required for building within the National Park, it now often comes from Spain, Brazil or even China.
Clays
Around Minehead and Porlock bricks and tiles were made from the red Mercia mudstones. There was a large brickpit at Alcombe (SS972453). The quarry was on the south side of what is now the A39 and the brick brick kilns on the north side. The clay was taken over the road by aerial ropeway. Marsh clay was also used for brickmaking and in the 19th century there was a large brickworks on the site of what is now Butlins holiday camp. At Porlock Wier the Marley family started their roofing tile business.
Around the eastern side of Exmoor many older buildings are roofed with Bridgwater tiles. These are red tiles in what is known as a 'double Roman' pattern. The brick and tile industry at Bridgwater was at its height in the 18th and 19th centuries, using clays from around the Tone and Parrett. Bridgwater became a busy port and the tiles could easily be sent down the coast to Exmoor. The last brick works closed in 1970 due to the best clay being exhausted.
On the western side of Exmoor it is common to see buildings in the cream-coloured Marland brick. These come from the ball clay works at Peters Marland near Torrington. The clay was originally used just for pottery but the opening up of a railway to the works in 1880 enabled bricks to be made and transported from there. The bricks were much in demand in the building boom that took place in the coastal resorts over the next two decades.