The Building Stone at the Roman Religious Complex, Lydney Park, Gloucestershire: Character and Fate

Abstract

The lower walls of the temple and bath house survive above ground at the Roman religious complex in the high ground of Lydney Park. They are composed almost exclusively of roughly dressed, coursed blocks of the red-stained, petrographically distinct Drybrook Sandstone (Lower Carboniferous), which outcrops within a few hundred metres nearby. Blocks of conglomerate from the Quartz Conglomerate (Upper Old Red Sandstone) and limestones from the Carboniferous Limestone Series are also present but very rare. The Norman Great Tower of Chepstow Castle, claimed to have been built largely of material robbed from Lydney Park, presents a markedly different suite of building materials in terms of rock-type, relative abundance and block shape, and was sourced from elsewhere.