Stately home geology: the building stones of Tyntesfield Manor

Abstract

Visiting a stately home open to the public can be a geological excursion in addition to a journey into social history. This is an experience akin to Darwin speculating whether his next landfall would present him with ‘igneous or metamorphic’ rocks to test his early geological knowledge, even before he had received Lyell's Principles when the Beagle reached Buenos Aires. In Britain the prospects are good when the house is Victorian or Edwardian, and we are facing the rich industrialists investing his wealth in opulent interiors within a High Gothic external architecture. In the West of England, this can be tested by a visit to Tyntesfield, a mansion acquired by the National Trust to the south of Bristol in South West England in 2002. Reputed to be little changed from being a family home, it has become a place where booking a timed visit is advised, such is public interest. It also has an added interest in that the Trust is in receipt of a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in order to carry out repairs and refurbishment of the many ancillary buildings of the landscaped estate. The work is proceeding alongside public visits, so offering insight into building conservation.