 Arnold
St Mary
Stonework
The church is sited on a sandstone ridge of Triassic age, belonging to the geological formations known as Nottingham Castle and Sneinton Sandstone formation.
The original stonework of the tower, nave and chancel is sandstone of the Triassic age sourced from local quarries. There were quarries at Gedling, an the sandstone used is similar to that used in Gedling Church. These greenish and reddened, fine to medium grained sandstone form the large blocks used in the walling and in the remnants of the door and window mouldings that have not been replaced. The sandstone shows typical sedimentary structures such as the cross-bedding and fine rippled lamination formed by transport in ancient river channels. The sandstone has clearly weathered badly in places and has been replaced by a harder sandstone of Carboniferous age, probably sourced from quarries in Derbyshire such as Coxbench, Stanton by Dale, or Horsley.
More recent additions include the porch which is constructed of pale yellow-buff coarse-grained shelly and ooidal limestone from the Middle Jurassic Lincolnshire Limestone Formation. The quarries are likely to have been either in the Ancaster area or perhaps around Stamford. The small building attached to the chancel (the vestry) is constructed of orange-brown, coarsely crystalline, magnesian limestone from the Bulwell quarries (Bulwell Golden Stone).
The church is roofed with Welsh slate.
In general, all subsequent repairs (walls, windows, door mouldings) and other additions (organ chamber extension) have been carried out in pale buff-coloured Carboniferous sandstone.
Internally the church walls and columns are all of local Triassic sandstone. The older carved stonework in the chancel is also fine to medium grained Triassic sandstone.
A good example of the dark, purple grey Swithland slate gravestone is mounted on one wall inside the church. There are several fine examples of letter Swithland slate in the graveyard. Swithland slates, of Cambrian age, were only worked in the Charnwood Forest area.
One of the slates has the signature ‘Knight’, and Knight worked from Bulwell. There are Swithland slates with his signature there.
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