Purbeck stone for items such as fonts, tombs, flooring and shafts. Purbeck stone Purbeck stone refers to building stone taken from a series of limestone beds found in the Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Purbeck Group, found on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset in southern England. The best known variety of this stone is Purbeck Marble. The stone has been quarried since at least Roman times up to the present day. The Purbeck Group is a sequence of sedimentary rocks that were deposited in a shallow freshwater to brackish lagoonal setting. It ranges in age from Tithonian to Berriasian. Limestone beds are
Cottonwood Limestone producing formations. A regionally famous construction material, Cottonwood Limestone is yellowish, buff, to nearly white in color, even-textured, durable, and very suitable for cutting into dimensional stone for masonry. Moreover, its beds of usable stone are particularly massive for the region; blocks of stone three or more feet thick and several feet in length and width can be taken from a ledge. While many other limestone formations are found in the region and have been widely used in local construction, most (excepting most notably the Fort Riley Limestone) weather poorly, lie with much thinner parting beds, or are generally much