IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Elstead Road, FARNHAM, GU10 1HU

Quiet village lane in Seale with traditional tile-hung cottages.

One of a number of buildings in this village which are built of clunch - squared blocks of chalk. Stable Cottage - as the name suggests - was once a stable block, now converted for residential purposes. Clunch is not normally reckoned to be a sound material for external work, except when protected by a cladding of less soluble material. Nonetheless, here in Seale there seems to be a well-established tradition of building in clunch - even the church is clunch-built http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4275118 . The chalk may have been quarried quite close by; http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4276562 Stable Cottage is listed, Grade II: http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1294487

A former stable block, converted for residential purposes. The pale stone from which it is built is clunch - in other words, chalk. Though the material is quite widely met with across Surrey, it is unusual to find sizeable buildings made from scratch using squared blocks of clunch. More often, clunch is seen in cottages and other small-scale buildings of more or less indeterminate age - used in piecemeal fashion alongside brick, timber and other local stone. At Seale, even the church is largely clunch-built http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4275118 as is a substantial building in Wood Lane. Notice that the high wall along the property boundary at Stable Cottage is also of clunch. Stable Cottage is listed, Grade II: http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1294487

Across the road from the church.

View north-westwards, with Manor Farm House visible beyond the lych-gate. The churchyard wall is built of local sandstone, of a kind known (I believe) as carstone - darker and more heavily iron-stained than the Bargate stone of the church tower. The churchyard trees are limes.