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FARINGDON TOWN CENTRE

Council buildings - the lower metre of stonework on the council buildings is made of a fossil shingle bed that is most likely to have been derived from the Faringdon Sponge Gravels. Looking closely you can see that it is made of lots of tiny fragments of fossils, such as shells. There are some fossil fragments that are light in colour and have a very porous texture, and these are fragments of fossil sponge, as indicated by the spongy texture.

Sponge Gravel building stone in the walls of the Council Buildings.

The Bell Hotel - Many of Faringdon's buildings were destroyed in the Civil War, but the Bell is thought to be pre-Civil War in age, which means it is probably one of the town's oldest buildings. The stones in the wall are mainly local coral-rich limestone, but because this limestone is such a poor building stone, wooden lintels are used above the windows, and a type of rock called freestone is used around the windows. Freestone is not local to Faringdon, but it makes a good building stone because it can be cut in any direction and has a smooth finish, unlike the rubbly local limestone.

The Old Town Hall - Looking closely at the pillars, you can see that there are lineations in the rock that diagonally cross each other. This is cross-bedding, and it is preserved ripples that formed on the seafloor by the gentle action of currents, just like the ripples that form on the beach today.