Sussex Marble

In the area, the Perpendicular Gothic towers of the parish churches of Biddenden, Headcorn, Smarden and Tenterden, pavements and paths in Staplehurst, and the Dering Arms, an inn next to Pluckley railway station, all use the material.

A kind of shell marble occurring in the Wealden clay, its quarrying was concentrated on the Egremont estate at Kirdford[1] and there are accounts of the industry at nearby Plaistow.

[5] Embellishment of the nave of Chichester Cathedral is in both Purbeck and Petworth Marbles;[6] the latter was used for the pillars of the upper triforium which even then showed "some decomposition of the shelly particles".

An example of this practice occurred as early as 1870, when the font at St Margaret's Church in West Hoathly had to be restored but the original Sussex Marble, quarried in Petworth, had run out.

The qualities of the material are being rediscovered through British sculptors like Jon Edgar who, after a gap of nearly 200 years, are having to re-discover the ways of working it, its strengths and weaknesses.