There are a lot of wonderful trees in Bath. I’ve only been twice, but it is the trees I remember more than the famously gracious buildings or the interesting shops. You’re in a city, full of people going about their impersonal business – hurrying, touristing, shopping – and suddenly you turn a corner and find a tree spreading taller than the surrounding buildings, trunk standing wider than a car. Some have a ring of benches around them, some stand proud alone.
That pale yellow stone … it looks lovely, mostly, yes. But it also looks awful in many places; I don’t know whether it’s pollution or corrosion or what, but it looks sooty and streaky, as if it had been dowsed in a thin black paint that was left to dry on it. Made me want to get a scrubbing brush.
Samuel Hardy , it’s no ordinary sandstone. It is called Bath stone and according to Wiki, is an Oolitic Limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. That golden or honey color is quite distinctive and is a big reason that Bath is a World Heritage City. “An important feature of Bath Stone is that it is a freestone, that is one that can be sawn or ‘squared up’ in any direction, unlike other rocks such as slate, which forms distinct layers.” I’m not enough of a geologist to appreciate this, but “During the Jurassic Period (195 to 135 million years ago) the region that is now Bath was under a shallow sea. Layers of Marine sediment built and individual spherical grains were coated with lime as they rolled around the sea bed forming the Bathonian Series of rocks. Under the microscope, these grains or ooliths (egg stone) are sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers.”
Anyway, it is enough of a big deal to have all this analysis devoted to it, LOL. I’ll just say that it is quite beautiful. I hope, Sophie Sheppard , someone takes a power wash to that stone and gets the sooty streaks off, if indeed that is what it is.
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
I ❤ Bath 🙂
Me too, Samuel Hardy ..that pale golden yellow stone they use is really something.
I love the highlight they have given to that tree.
There are a lot of wonderful trees in Bath. I’ve only been twice, but it is the trees I remember more than the famously gracious buildings or the interesting shops. You’re in a city, full of people going about their impersonal business – hurrying, touristing, shopping – and suddenly you turn a corner and find a tree spreading taller than the surrounding buildings, trunk standing wider than a car. Some have a ring of benches around them, some stand proud alone.
That pale yellow stone … it looks lovely, mostly, yes. But it also looks awful in many places; I don’t know whether it’s pollution or corrosion or what, but it looks sooty and streaky, as if it had been dowsed in a thin black paint that was left to dry on it. Made me want to get a scrubbing brush.
You all know it’s sandstone, right? I just wondered why you were all still calling it ‘pale, yellow stone’ XD
Samuel Hardy , it’s no ordinary sandstone. It is called Bath stone and according to Wiki, is an Oolitic Limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. That golden or honey color is quite distinctive and is a big reason that Bath is a World Heritage City. “An important feature of Bath Stone is that it is a freestone, that is one that can be sawn or ‘squared up’ in any direction, unlike other rocks such as slate, which forms distinct layers.” I’m not enough of a geologist to appreciate this, but “During the Jurassic Period (195 to 135 million years ago) the region that is now Bath was under a shallow sea. Layers of Marine sediment built and individual spherical grains were coated with lime as they rolled around the sea bed forming the Bathonian Series of rocks. Under the microscope, these grains or ooliths (egg stone) are sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers.”
Anyway, it is enough of a big deal to have all this analysis devoted to it, LOL. I’ll just say that it is quite beautiful. I hope, Sophie Sheppard , someone takes a power wash to that stone and gets the sooty streaks off, if indeed that is what it is.
Yes it is indeed soot from thousands of coal fires used to heat buildings during the early 20th century (and earlier)