Nada Mucho

News:
-I trimmed my bangs. They are back. I am happy.
-I saw "Breaking and Entering." good film. I think it was British. Jude Law was in it.
-Christie's made a record-breaking sale of post-war modern art last week, $491 million in one night.
-I changed the blog format, again. Sorry if this is confusing, but if I don't have to choose one style, I'm not going to.
- My friend Katie is coming to visit me on Thursday! She's been in Madrid this semester.

News I would like to hear about:
-Steven? College Applications? How's it going? I know that's really stressful.
-Thanksgiving- what is everyone doing? You must all eat an extra helping of good-tasting food for me. (my housemates are cooking the dinner...this could be disasterous).
- What is everyone's favorite color to WEAR? Definitely answer that one. Don't be shy.

So in the last couple of weeks, time has been slow and time has flown by. I kind of feel like I'm on a strange rollercoaster with lots of zooming parts and slow bits. It's all really enjoyable, though.

Last week, I was really busy with my work, but I turned it into something fun for myself: a.k.a. I sat in coffee shops for about 4 days straight, huddled in a warm corner with my coffee, computer and pile of books. I had to finish two presentations, one short paper and one long paper...all due within the span of three days. What a sob story, right? Anyways, it was stressful but I found a way to be happy doing it!

I also made myself take really nice long walks home, and one particular day was just magical. I had my camera with me, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. It's really the moments like these that make me love being here in England.




I know it's kind of lazy of me, but I've decided I'm going to post one of my papers here for the rest of the entry....mostly becuase these are the words and sentences that I've spent a lot of time on this week, and I'm totally devoid of thought and wit. So, enjoy the splendors of my academic and stodgy writing. It's not great, but my tutor likes that it's so informative. She tells me I'm 'special' and gives me gold stickers.

Whatever. Please don't read this if you don't feel like yawning. (did you notive the double negative? I suck at writing now).


Tutorial Assignment #3: Sources and Maintenance of Oxford’s Stone.


Few English counties are more fortunate to be surrounded by a plethora of building materials than Oxfordshire. The myriad of stone quarries is particularly striking, from Headington to Wheatley to Taynton; the diversity of local stone is remarkable. The majority of Oxford stone is Limestone, as the whole western and northern parts of the county fall within the Jurassic belt (180-150 million years old) . Before the Industrial Revolution and the era of man-made or imported building materials, it was the quality and individuality of local stone that gave Oxford its charm and individuality. In a decade where coral stone from the Caribbean and white stone from the south of France can be delivered to a construction site with ease , it’s easy to forget the dangers and difficulties that the first masons of Oxford experienced while building the first colleges and university buildings in the 13th century. This report intends to give a brief overview of not only the nature and history of the stone in Oxford, but also what is being done to maintain and insure its preservation in the future.

The Building Materials of Oxford

Stone first appeared in the Oxford skyline as far back as the early as the 11th century, when the Normans built their Castle, City Wall, and Church of St. Michael. The earliest buildings that rose were made of random rubblestone masonry, mostly Coral Rag, taken from neighboring hills. Coral Rag is made of the fossilized remains of coral reef and in fact the structure of the corals (the shells and spines of sea-urchins) can still be seen by the naked eye. The stone is nearly indestructible (and therefore difficult to alter) and has hardly weathered in the last nine centuries. But not all the stone on these first buildings was unmanageably difficult and used only for plain walling—the Norman builders apparently acquired freestone from Caen to use for “dressings,” i.e. quoins, window jambs, sills, lintels, cornices etc.
Although rubble stones continued to be used in the 13th and 14th centuries, when the first Oxford Colleges were built, hardstone and freestone were also beginning to be quarried from nearby areas. Merton College (1289-94) has a few walls that are clearly still made of Coral Rag, but the rubble stone was beginning to be considered unsuitable and large, square stones were starting to come into demand for the walling Early records show that the stones were quarried from Wheatley and, a century later, from Headington. Freestones, however, were taken from Taynton and other quarries near Burford. St. Mary’s church (c. 1280), New College (1380-6) and it’s Bell Tower (1396-7), as well as Magdalen college (1474), being the larger projects of this era, were also built using the larger stones from Wheatley and Headington. After nearly six centuries, the stone of these buildings is as strong as ever, and has had fewer reconstructions or repairs than the majority of other types of stone in Oxford.
During the Renaissance, masons became ambitious enough to construct entire building facades in the “classical” style, and thus required a greater amount of freestone than before. The Taynton quarries used in the previous century didn’t have enough material to cope with the necessary quantity, so masons took advantage of the freestone that was also available at Headington. Lots of buildings were constructed in Headington freestone, including Oriel College, University College, Queens College, the Old Ashmolean, Clarendon buildings and the ground floors of the Sheldonian and Radcliffe camera. The fact that Headington freestone had never previously been used should have been a warning to the Renaissance builders, but the demand for stone caused those in the quarrying profession to forget the historical issues with the stone and falsely proclaim that the freestone was just “neglected in the past.” Unfortunately, the stone decays quickly after exposure to weather, and as a result, millions of pounds have had to be expended in recent years on refacing the university and college buildings.
By the end of the 18th century, the issues and untrustworthiness of the Headington stone was evident, and builders began searching for new stone. In about 1820, Bath stone appeared in Oxford and would soon become the most popular stone used during one of the most prolific buildings eras Oxford has ever had: the Gothic Revival Gilbert Scott, Waterhouse, Butterfield, Deane, Woodward, Ruskin and Acland all used Bath stone for their various constructions and remodels around the city. But the outsourcing of stone soon grew out of fashion, and by the end of the Gothic Revival, principal structures and adaptations were carried out completely in Taynton and Milton stone from nearby Burford. Unfortunately, the Milton stone proved to be of low quality and led to rapid decay—causing many of the same problems as the Headington stone a few hundred years before. Some critics believe that the costs of replacing the stone from this era were so high that “it would be welcome if the dissolution of these huge buildings were even more rapid, for rather than completely reface them…the owners would gladly pull them down. ” Considering how long it takes for the errors of stone to show up, it would have been hard for Mason’s to foresee issues with the stone they used to build Oxford. Even today, stonemasons who are questioned about the future of the stone they are using for projects tend to shrug their shoulders and retort, “First of all, when is the “future” of a building, and even if we did know, how on earth could you guess what Mother Nature will do to it?”
By the beginning of the 20th century, most of the construction in Oxford dealt with restoring old buildings as opposed to building new ones. From about 1900-1920, many of Oxford’s most famous sites were covered in scaffolding, including Hawksmoor’s twin towers at All Souls, the top story of Tom Tower and much of the west facade of Christ Church. The stone used was “Upper Inferior Oolite” from Clipsham, an area still quarried to this day. Clipsham was first used in Oxford at the Examination schools by Sir Thomas Jackson in 1867-8 as well as for some repairs to the Bodleian quadrangle. Clipsham stone, however, is virtually indestructible and thus imposed a heavy burden and responsibility on the mason who sculpted it. Fortunately, by the end of the 20th century, technology and tools had become advanced and automatic enough to allow for significant mastery over the hard stone. In fact, the use of manufactured diamonds in stone cutting has drastically increased the types of stone that can be used around Oxford. Clipsham, Portland, Ironstone, Cotswold, Lincolnshire, and Bath are currently the most common stones used to reface or build new buildings in Oxford.
But what exactly is it about these stones that qualify them all as typically “Oxford” stone? First and foremost, they are all Limestone, and belong to the “Oolites,” a Jurassic system of sedimentary rocks. The stone has concentric circles of calcium carbonate, which accounts for much of the stone’s deterioration and reaction to pollution. The best bricks of stone from Oxford would appear homogenous, with fragments too fine for identification (although occasionally a fossil will show up that gives a brick invaluable intrigue although very little structural promise)
Any stones from outside of Oxford that get used in the city typically “are inharmonious and out of place,” as the brick of Manchester College does (apparently their materials “reek of the north” ). With such ingrained consistency, the stone of Oxford creates a cohesiveness and character to the city that no other material or cultural aspect of city can.


The Decay and Repair of Oxford

A major drawback to having a city made almost entirely of stone is that the decay, repair and maintenance of Oxford buildings occur on a massive and cyclic scale.
The three most common and serious forms of weathering at Oxford are: skin-formation, blistering and exfoliation. Since the stone is primarily Calcium Sulphate (gypsum), it reacts poorly with Sulphur dioxide gas (which is a product of coal burning), binds quickly with moisture and expands with the sun. The Calcium Carbonate rings that are so characteristic of Oxford stone also pose a problem, as they react differently than the rest of the stone and cause distinct types and levels of deterioration in different sections of the stone. Other significant chemical reactions and natural deteriorations include warts (small black baubles), cavernous decay (irregular hard and soft spots in the stone), erosion of bedding-planes (for heterogeneous stone), granular disintegration (mainly due to mechanical etching by wind and rain), and the solution of fine matrix (removal of the fine grain that holds the shell-fragments together) . Often, neighboring stone or fixtures will erode the limestone; for example, the iron cramps that became popular for a few decades during the Gothic Revival rust and split stone. Modern conveniences such as the massive vibrations of traffic along High Street create both horizontal and vertical seismic waves that deteriorate the stone. University College did a study of their buildings in 1932 that concluded there were vibrations “equivalent to the force of a blow delivered by the daily dropping of a ton weight from a height of one foot on each square yard of the college” And finally, natural plants, or “creepers” are constantly scaling the walls of buildings around Oxford, leaving a waxy coating, or, in some cases, becoming so involved in the crumbling of the buildings that their removal would take half the stone with it.
The methods of repair for these damages to the stone are varied and controversial and the type of repair chosen usually is determined by the preferences and budget of each college. As consistent as the building materials have been over the years at Oxford, their repair is patchy at best, leaving the city often under various stages of “restored.” Most masons nowadays would suggest that completely refacing a building is by far the most economical and practical way to repair a decaying section of a building. However, complete Refacing is costly and time-consuming, so many colleges opt for the option of Partial Refacing. New College’s top story was refaced while the rest of the building remained untouched, for example. Patching is another restorative option, which involves repairing sections of a building with new stone before the decay has gone too far. Patching involves casual employment over years from a company like Symm & Co , who would know the ins and outs of a building, and could easily foresee the areas that would need repair before significant problems occur. While most of the methods of reconstruction involve the use of actual stone, some colleges are using the somewhat recently manufactured ‘synthetic stone,’ to patch or repair bits of Oxford. Synthetic stone is a fine-grained concrete aggregate of stone dust and sand. When used to repair the most recently constructed buildings, synthetic stone is not too garish, however, the concrete significantly detracts from the effect of the mediaeval buildings in Oxford, such as New College, and sticks out as a perpetual sore thumb.


The Future

Clearly the problems of Oxford Stone are far from being solved and don’t even seem to have a clear long-term plan of maintenance and repair, however the outlook is hopeful. Never have there been greater concerns for national heritage and protection, which means the issues of pollution and traffic can be seriously tackled by authorities. Scientific advances for testing stone and understanding erosion are allowing us to better determine the chemistry of our built environment and methods of testing are far more sophisticated than even 10 years ago. Finally, the information about stone maintenance is becoming easily accessible, and current clients are choosing quality over quantity as they realize the long-term benefits of the finer-grade stone. If everyone would be willing to harness their awe of the presence of those Norman buildings scattered around Oxford, and tune into their feelings of national pride in having a city that has withstood years of damage and change, there’s a good change that the buildings we see right now in Oxford will be standing long after we’re gone; all it take is information and vision.