Robert Merry, an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years and now also runs training courses on project management, gives his personal slant on the stone industry this month.

We chugged on a barge up the River Severn from Worcester, on to the Staffs & Worcestershire canal, through Kidderminster; turning right at the Stourport junction, on to the Stourbridge Canal, into Stourbridge and back again.

Well, not really chugged as such. More rumbled as the diesel engine pushed our six-berth barge through the canals’ reedy waters and up and down the river Severn.

At various points the canal cut through red sandstone escarpments.

It rose up through locks and back down again. Lock gates of 3,000kgs were opened single handedly, thanks to the engineering ingenuity of the Chinese, who invented the Pound Lock around 900AD, give or take a few years. Using the weightless effect of water to glide these huge wooden water doors open and shut – though they take a bit of ‘heave ho!’ at first.

The Pound Lock turned up in medieval Europe in 1373, in the Netherlands. A smaller version, more akin to the one used in the UK today, was built at Bruges in 1396 – about the same time they finished building Worcester Cathedral.

Our barge journey ended where it had begun, in Worcester. We moored up, then wandered through the city centre, past the extraordinary façade of the Guildhall building with the carved figure of Queen Anne, flanked by carvings of Charles I and Charles II.

The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester, to give it its full title, is at the end of the high street. The Normans started the building sometime around 1084 and it was finished 300 years later in 1386, though bits kept being added up to the1500s.

It’s a mixture of Norman and Gothic architecture. Highley Sandstone or Thick Sandstone from the Halesowen Formation was used extensively. Hexton’s red sandstone and Bromsgrove Sandstone are two more locally quarried stones that also feature. Sadly, neither is any longer extracted.

The beautiful light Gothic architecture of the vaulted ceilings, with delicate ‘ribs’ of stone are in-filled with a reddish local limestone called Tufa. It gives a richness to the ceiling and a distinct colour not normally seen in Gothic churches.

There are columns and floors of Purbeck, Alabaster carvings, Carrara marble and black stone floors. Other imported stones adorn altars and pulpits, memorials and chapels.

The source for much of this stone knowledge comes from the Strategic Stone Study’s Building Stone Atlas of Worcestershire, published by English Heritage and written by Dr Peter Oliver. It can be downloaded from the Strategic Stone Study section of the British Geological Survey website (maps.bgs.ac.uk/BuildingStone).

Worcestershire has a wealth of stone within its boundaries and this publication is a deep mine of information (unavoidable and irresistible pun – Boom! Boom!). For instance, the red sandstone seen on the canal is probably Bridgnorth sandstone.

The cathedral has undergone recent restoration, completed last year. The resident stone masons have undertaken some remarkable work and a visit is well worthwhile. Dr Oliver’s Atlas is a good accompaniment, as well.

The Chinese invented the Pound lock, which found its way to Worcestershire to enable me to barge my way up country and discover Worcester Cathedral on the way back.

Red Sandstone escarpments on canal banks led to discovering stones of Worcestershire, the good Doctor’s book and Tufa limestone in vaulted ceilings. It seems all life is linked somewhere, somehow… by chance perhaps; by water or, in my case, by stone.

Robert Merry, MCIOB, ran his own stone company for 17 years and is now an independent Stone Consultant and Project Manager. He also delivers training programmes on all aspects of Estimating and Project Management – details and dates are on his website (address below).Tel: 0207 502 6353 / 07771 997621