PORTLAND STONE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 19

PORTLAND STONE

OF WHICH LONDON IS BUILT

NOTABLE PIECES OF MASONRY.

It was through Portland stone that Wren expressed his genius, and, as an artist responsive to the nature of his material, something of his greatness came from that beautiful and enduring stone that is so little considered, yet is almost London itself in the memories of her visitors and in the unconscious thoughts of Londoners. How strange it is that in the articles and books on Wren hardly a word appears about Portland stone, states James Bone in the "Manchester Guardian." It is a great and magical stone, the most beautiful in the world, more beautiful,- I think, even than the Roman travertine, with its marmoreal quality that responds so exquisitely to wear. Portland stone seemed ordained to form the face of London, its surface so finely mirroring the fitful lights that break through her river mists, blanching in her towers and spires to a finer, whiteness as the darker grow the coats of grime at the bases and sides. How they come and go through the mists as you watch from Waterloo Bridge over the grey-blue Thames on a spring morning. Who can ever forget his first vision of it all as he beheld, round the bend of the river, the apparition of the mighty fleet of Wren, with their topgallants and mainsails of stone? The nautical simile leaps to the mind at the sight of Wren's white spires and towers, apd it is appropriate, too, to the material in which Wren worked. Portland stone is a marine deposit of the Jurassic period before Britain first at Heaven's command arose from out the azure main. Its beds are full of :fossals 'of marine creatures, sea urchins, starfish, and shells. You can see shell imprints on the freshly-cut Whit-bed stone on the top of the new Bush Building, and you can see ''horses' heads"—as certain shell fossils are called by masons —on the weather-beaten south parapet of St. Paul's. It is a- strange thought that the majesty of the capital of this sea-jointed Empire should come itself from beneath the sea, and that all the stone glories of London should be stamped so secretly with the. seals of the creatures of the sea. How could our poets, how could Mr. Kipling, have miss%d such a theme? • The relations between Portland stone and the characteristic London light have been mentioned. The smoke and the wayward directions of the wind buffeted in the confined irregular streets of London are other factors in the complexion of the town. The weathering of stone is affected by hundreds of chances, the arrangements and accidents of the drips, the quality of the jointing when tested by, the rains, the flatness of the surface, and the eccentricities of...small mouldings, as well as the prevailing wind that whitens projections and cleans every surface on which it has free play. "Portland stone," ah architect once said to me, "is the only stone that,.washes itself." His theory was that once your building is up the . stone begins to gather a crust of dirt which greys down its first delicate lemon tinge; after it has accumulated a certain quantity the crust comes off by its own weight, and the air' then plays on the cream stone which has thus already had a' certain weathering, and the surface gradually whitens to the ashen colour that is the beauty of London. Unlike most stion.es, it decays by powdering off in a uniform way, so that its surface continues flat. You can see in the Strand just now the process going on in four buildings of different periods. The Bush building has the lemon, tinge, Australia House, beside it, has greyed down, and the Law Courts, which is about fifty ■ years old, has a tinge of green in its whito, while Wren's St. Clement Danes has ashy whites and rich delicate blacks. The bases of nearly all.London buildings where the wind has not free play soon turn black, and spires and towers s»6n become white, but strange pranks are played on the body of the building. My favourite pieces of Portland stone are the plinth of the Charles the First statue at Charing Cross, which tradition says was designed by Wren, and the'flat buttress at the foot of the clock tower of the Law Courts, and Pennethorne's cherubs and dolphins, on Somerset House west front, "—ut these are personal preferences, s Many Londoners have their fs-vourite stones; and one is often struck by the sensitiveness among Londoners about this oolitic material. Discussing stone with a hardworking, shy man of business, I spoke about the blackness of Portland stone. "Oh, don't call' it black," he said quickly, "don't call it that, or you and I will quarrel. It's not black. It's the most delicate dark grey and purple, and all sorts of colours. Dark—if you like." It was like Charles Lamb's shrinking from so hard a word as "fat" about the young pig. Phrases like "leprous," "piebald," and "skeleton" have been used against the London Portland stone./ Certainly the milk-white' quality of its lit shapes against the night sky at first have an uncanny effect on the mind. The look of London is bo different from that of other cities. Manchester buildings are uniform rich black, with a delivate surface, as of adhering textile fluff, so that on some days it seems a velvet city, with ,j black velvet buildings and white velvet clocks. Glasgow buildings darken quickly into a. hard, morose quality, with smoke'quietly about them. Edinburgh is a grey city, its Graigleith stone and method' of cutting reflecting little light, but deepening its tall dignity. Liverpool has Portland stone, but its atmosphere does not whiten'or darken it, asj London's does. So when a young man! comes to settle in London it seems a strange uncanny place, and Wren's great cathedral and churches, and the Jong front, of Chambers'B Somerset House, and the many great buildings excite him much and perplex him a little. It is usually after many years that he conies to understand why London looks sp dramatic or —shall one say?—"theatrical." He is awaro of something against which his reason is fighting. It is the weathering of Portland stone; the appearance of great shadows where there can be no shadows, throwinß blackness up and down, and wr3a.th.Mig towers with girdles of black, and cutting strange shapes on flat surfaces. Mystery hovers over the city, everything is slightly falsified, almost'sinister; "fair is foul and foul is fair"; there is magic about. Strange-, ness is allied to beauty, and that is romance. That is the final secret of. Portland stone.