 Car Colston
St Mary
Stonework
The stone used in the fabric of St Mary is:
a.Skerry sandstone
The nave, aisles, chancel and ground floor of the tower are constructed
in Triassic Mercia Mudstone which is a hard fine-grained sandstone known
as skerry. This skerry stone was widely used for rubble wall material and
is very common in the Trent Valley area. Grey-green and very hard, it is
not amenable to working and suffers little erosion. It was probably collected
from the fields or shallow pits.
b.Sherwood sandstone
The upper floors of the tower to the nineteenth-century addition at the
top, quoins, buttresses and other ashlar work are Triassic Sherwood sandstone,
which being softer can be shaped more readily into blocks. It has the characteristic
of fluvial sandstones, erosion by soft clay clasts.
c.Lincolnshire limestone
A number of the window mouldings, the top of the tower, are Lincolnshire
limestone, probably quarried at Ancaster and fairly pale in colour.
The roofs are covered with Victorian tiles.
| 
