ABSTRACT
The Pleasures of Limestone stone with which to build the Houses of Parliament. The designs of Barry and Pugin existed. It was the business of the Commissioners to find a stone which would withstand the London atmosphere but which would, at the same time, be soft enough to allow the easy execution of intricate and endless neo-Gothic ornamentation. The Commissioners' task was an impossible one; since the cart was not only before the horse, but of its nature immovable. It may be recalled that an offer to supply, free of charge, sufficient granite to build the Houses of Parliament, had to be rejected owing to the difficulty of working the stone to the accepted design. The Commissioners, buoyed up by cheap transport and modern 'science', encouraged by the sight in London of thousands of miles of insensitive paved streets, shouldered their hopeless task. They took immense trouble to ascertain the qualities of various stones: still, at bottom, from the very circumstance of their task, they were regarding stone as modelling clay, just as do our contemporary architects who yet like to build with natural stone. After finding that the Bolsover quarries would not yield enough stone for their needs, the Commissioners finally chose the lovely dolomite from Anston, an excellent building stone, but one which reacts to neo-Gothic sculpture in London with dangerous vents and fissures. The Geological Museum in Jermyn Street was built of Anston stone at about the same time; and it is often stated, with a certain amount of relish, that its good condition is to be attributed to the personal choice of the blocks made by Sir Henry de la Beche, who was director at that time of H.M. Geological Survey. This is
