Wimborne Minster: Purbeck Marble and Decorative Stone                                             
                                                                                                                                                         ​Lead author: PJB

Purbeck Marble and Decorative/Polished Stone of St. Cuthburga’s Church, Wimborne Minster

Purbeck Marble

Most of this interior decorative stone was polished and some features are today treated with preservatives to retain a polished effect.  The earliest known interior use of Purbeck Marble is probably that of the eight Norman horizontally bedded and dowel jointed pillars that the arches to the chapels and aisles spring from, on the Lantern tower piers. (1). The size of the Lantern pier base plates, (red arrowed below) that these pillars stand upon, suggest there may well have originally been pairs of pillars and so perhaps once totalling fourteen of them at the crossing archways. 

Immediately below the North porch main entranceway is a red- coloured ledger slab to the right of one made of Blue Lias Stone. (5.) Also, as the first nave step up into the choir (6.) is another step slab of Green Bed Purbeck Marble that is oxidised red.  

8a. In the right-hand column to the St George’s chapel Uvedale monument, the 25mm height and 10-12mm width cross sections of the Viviparus fluviorum, in Sussex Marble, immediately identifies it as an unusual import.
8b. Historically and still locally today, this stone may be named the Sussex Large Paludina Marble and the10mm x 4-5 mm Viviparus infracretacicus as the Sussex Small Paludina Marble.

9. The stairway from the choir to presbytery and the east window clusters of columns are of Purbeck Marble. So too the recently polished table tombs and adjacent darkly Victorian waxed colonette pillars (4 & 10) Several medieval PkMb ledger slabs are laid head to tail in St.George’s chapel.

Imported Polished Stone

​12. On the left a veined Blue Lias ledger slab near the north nave entrance, typically contrasts greatly with the Holy Trinity Chapel’s prestigious Belgian Black ledger slab (13) on the right. This is possibly a recycled Medieval altar top – note its moulding. Prestige Interior ledgers are commonly of Blue Lias Limestone or Purbeck Marble.

In the absence of U.K. true marbles, extensive use was made of polished Devonian Period limestones (14 and 15) from Devon in C19th church renovation. At the Minster a Devonian dado rail enclosing black ceramic tiles was added to the Presbytery walling around the high altar and Thomas Earp chose a variety of brightly coloured imported polished stone, mainly as pillars, to ornament the exemplary Pierre de Caen pulpit he personally completed sculpting on site.

16. Earp’s polished stone pillars: 1. Devonian Period Plymouth Rose Red Radford compacted limestone.  2. Dalradian Irish Connemara white steaked Streamstown Marble.  3. Cretaceous to Eocene Apuan Bardiglio Marble, Carrara.  4. All polished stone is decoratively set in Middle Jurassic Pierre de Caen Stone – exquisitely sculpted in fine detail by Thomas Earp five years after his most celebrated carving of the replica Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross, London. (1863)  5. Floral Easter celebration 2019 Christine Oliver (Minster guide.) (Identifications 14-16 pers comm Prof Gordon Walkden Mar 2019)

All text and images PJB unless otherwise stated