Exotic marbles on Cheshire cheese: High‐street geology in Bath

Abstract

Most shoppers in Bath ignore the cladding on the front of the‘Co‐op’. Those pausing to look probably consider it marble. In fact, it is Larvikite, a type of syenite commonly used to clad high‐street stores throughout Britain. A survey of shop fronts, banks and other services in this city reveals a wide variety of exotic imported marbles and granites attached to local Bath Stone at street level. Modern stone cladding is also found to extend beyond the post‐war shopping area. Stromatolitic limestones and porphyritic granites peep out beneath Victorian shop windows in Milsom Street. Moreover, not all the cladding in this street is found to be modern. Scottish and Shap Granites, introduced into Bath in the nineteenth century, clad former banks and a Victorian department store.