22 CONTEXT 189 : SEPTEMBER 2026 source in practice. The Building Stone Database for England (BSDE) provides a structured and accessible framework for identifying historic building stones, understanding their characteristics and sources, and informing decisions about their use in heritage practice. The BSDE was developed to improve the sustainable supply of appropriate materials for conservation and repair. Its origins lie in the Symonds Report Planning for the Supply of Natural Building and Roofing Stone in England and Wales (2004), which identified the problems of sourcing appropriate stone to repair historic buildings. It recommended that a national database of the building and roofing stones be established, and that mineral planning authorities should identify and protect ‘heritage quarries’. In response, Historic England conceived and managed the BSDE as a collaborative project, bringing together geological expertise, including local geologists and the British Geological Survey (BGS), and knowledge of historic buildings and local building traditions. The result is a substantial national resource that is freely available online. It includes around 4,000 individual building stones, more than 15,000 building stone quarries, and 20,000 identified stone-built structures. Users can engage with an interactive map to search by building or quarry location, identifying nearby sources or representative stone-built structures respectively, with searches extendable by radius. Specific locations can be explored alongside their underlying geology by postcode, address or place name. This functionality enables a clearer understanding of the distribution of stone-built structures, and their relationship with former or currently worked quarries. Each county is supported by a spreadsheet detailing its building stones, sources and indicative structures, along with an accompanying guide.These guides summarise and illustrate the use of building stones, organised by geological chronology, within their historic context, helping to articulate local distinctiveness and character. The information has been compiled to ensure both accuracy (using formal geological nomenclature alongside local and trade names) and accessibility, serving mineral planners, building conservation advisers, architects, surveyors, and those assessing the character of townscapes and landscapes. For the historic building professional, the BSDE offers practical benefits across a broad Portland limestone juxtaposed to Totternhoe stone has caused the latter to preferentially deteriorate. Bedding and pointing mortars also play a major role in moisture transport, so these are also critical to the performance and longevity of building stones. (Photo: Historic England) The front cover and geological map of the Greater Manchester guide. Richly illustrated, the county guides showcase selected structures built from local stone (Image: Historic England). Each guide includes a geological map, showing the bedrock geology of the county (Image: British Geological Survey and UKRI). range of conservation activities concerned with identifying and sourcing compatible stone. These relate to: • Stone identification and diagnosis: accurate identification of building stone is fundamental to diagnosing defects and decay mechanisms. By correlating a building’s location with mapped stone types in the BSDE, practitioners can narrow down the range of likely stone types, and refine identification through inspection or laboratory analysis where required. • Specification of replacement stone: the BSDE supports the identification of original quarry sources and highlights geologically compatible alternatives, informing robust and policycompliant specifications. • Understanding regional character and significance: the BSDE supports a deeper understanding of regional distinctiveness.This is particularly valuable for conservation area appraisals, heritage impact assessments and design guidance. It aligns with the NPPF requirement to conserve and, where appropriate, enhance the significance of heritage assets and their settings. • Supporting sustainable quarrying and mineral safeguarding: by evidencing demand for specific stone types, the BSDE informs mineral safeguarding policies and, where appropriate, helps to justify reopening important building stone resources, consistent with NPPF policies on safeguarding mineral resources of local and national importance. • Supporting sustainable use of indigenous
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