Whitening Factory, Kintbury
Two chalybeate springs at Sunninghill were at one time quite well known.
Whiting or whitening has for a long time been manufactured at Kintbury from soft chalk which is dug there. A layer in the Reading Beds at Reading used to be dug as fuller’s earth for the clothiers of that town.
Before the Norman conquest most of the buildings in the county were of wood, and of course wood has been very largely used in buildings at all times. Splendid examples of hewn timber-work may be seen in many of our churches and other buildings. There is for example some very fine old timber in the Canon’s Cloisters at Windsor Castle.
Brick was a building material in the time of the Romans and its use was most probably never wholly discontinued. In Tudor times many of the buildings were of brick and timber, and picturesque brick and timber structures of various dates will be found in all parts of our county. The gallery at Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon, shown on the next page, is a good example.
All the clay formations in Berkshire have been used for brick and tile making. The works at Katesgrove and other places on the banks of the Kennet at Reading are very old and certainly go back to the sixteenth century. In 1901 there were 1029 men and 35 women engaged in brick, cement, pottery, and like works in Berkshire.
The limestone rocks of the Corallian formation have been much quarried in the district between Faringdon and the river Thames near Oxford, and the stone has been used in buildings of all ages.
Chalk has also been extensively quarried for building purposes. There is a great deal of chalk in the walls of the Dean’s Cloisters and also in other parts of Windsor Castle. Chalk frame-work may be seen in many church windows, at Old Windsor and Bray for instance. At Waltham St Lawrence there is a very curious example, for some flints are actually left in the chalk mullions of the east window of the north chantry. It may be of interest to mention that in the valley of the Seine in northern France chalk has been extensively used as a building stone—in some of the best buildings at Rouen for example.
Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon