I WILL begin with freestone (lapis arenarius), as the best kind of stone that this country doth afford.
The quarre at Haselbury [near Box] was most eminent for freestone in the western parts, before the discovery of the Portland quarrie, which was but about anno 1600. The church of Portland, which stands by the sea side upon the quarrie, (which lies not very deep, sc. ten foot), is of Cane stone, from Normandie. Malmesbury Abbey and the other Wiltshire religious houses are of Haselbury stone. The old tradition is that St. Adelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, riding over the ground at Haselbury, did throw down his glove, and bad them dig there, and they should find great treasure, meaning the quarre. ___________________________________
AT Chilmarke is a very great quarrie of freestone, whereof the
religious houses of the south part of Wiltshire and Dorset were built.
[The walls, buttresses, and other substantial parts of Salisbury
Cathedral are constructed of the Chilmarke stone. - J. B.]
At Teffont Ewyas is a quarrie of very good white freestone, not long since discovered.
At Compton Basset is a quarrie of soft white stone betwixt chalke and freestone: it endures fire admirably well, and would be good for reverbatory furnaces: it is much used for ovens and hearth-stones: it is as white as chalke. At my Lord Stowell's house at Aubury is a chimney piece carved of it in figures; but it doth not endure the weather, and therefore it ought not to be exposed to sun and raine.
At Yatton Keynel, in Longdean, is a freestone quarrie, but it doth not endure the weather well.
In Alderton-field is a freestone quarrie, discovered a little before the civill-warres broke forth.
In Bower Chalke field, in the land that belongs to the farme of Broad Chalke, is a quarrie of freestone of a dirty greenish colour, very soft, but endures the weather well. The church and houses there are built with it, and the barne of the farme, w{hi}ch is of great antiquity. ___________________________________
The common stone in Malmesbury hundred and thereabout is oftentimes blewish in the inside, and full of very small cockles, as at Easton Piers. These stones are dampish and sweate, and doe emitt a cold and unwholsome dampe, sc. the vitriolate petrified salt in it exerts itselfe.
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