Binstead Quarry

Overview

The quarries at Binstead on the Isle of Wight worked a single lens of the Bembridge Limestone — the stone known as Quarr Stone, Featherbed Limestone or Binstead Stone — over a mappable oval about 400 by 200 metres. Exploitation began in Roman times, the stone reaching Portchester Castle in the second or early third century, and peaked in the Norman period, when it was shipped to the mainland for Winchester, Chichester and Canterbury cathedrals. The bed is only 60 to 70 cm thick and was a limited resource: it had been worked out by early medieval times, and no exposure of Quarr Stone is known today.

History

Early exploitation of the Binstead quarries began in Roman times — the stone was used in the construction of Portchester Castle in the second or early third century — and reached its peak in the Norman period. Quarrying was concentrated in a single limestone lens, the Featherbed, developed in the centre of Binstead over a mappable oval area some 400 metres by 200. Quarr Stone was quarried between Quarr Abbey and Binstead to the end of the fourteenth century and was mostly exported to the mainland; the deposit was probably lenticular and was exhausted within about two hundred years. Quarr Stone, Binstead Stone and the Bembridge Limestone supplied significant quantities for major building projects on the mainland, among them Winchester, Chichester and Canterbury cathedrals. The bed’s thinness — 60 to 70 centimetres — is the whole story of the quarry: a stone good enough to build cathedrals with, in a body small enough to run out.

Geology

The Bembridge Limestone Formation, up to nine metres thick, laid down in freshwater environments in the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 35 to 30 million years ago, and yielding a range of rock types of limited extent — among them the Binstead Stone and the Quarr Stone. Quarr Stone is a cream to pale grey coquina: a bivalve biosparite, originally a high-density, low-diversity accumulation of small non-marine bivalves under a centimetre across, swept together by storm action, with some small gastropods and scattered quartz grains. Burrowing organisms disturbed the shells before burial, leaving shell-filled burrows two to five centimetres wide and up to twenty long; the shells were lightly cemented by calcite and then dissolved, and many of the resulting moulds remain as voids, which gives the stone its characteristic tufa-like look. It is close enough in appearance to the Purbeck Burr, 110 million years older, that weathered blocks are hard to tell apart.

Workings

Quarrying was concentrated in one lens — the Featherbed — in the centre of Binstead, over an oval about 400 by 200 metres, with working extending between Quarr Abbey and Binstead. The stone was cut for export by sea to the mainland rather than for local use.

Closure

The Featherbed lens is only 60 to 70 centimetres thick and was a limited resource; it had been worked out by early medieval times, and quarrying of Quarr Stone ended by the close of the fourteenth century after perhaps two hundred years of serious working.

What remains

No exposures of Quarr Stone are known today. Loose blocks can still be found on the beaches below the quarries, and the stone itself survives in the buildings it was shipped away to build.

No exposure survives; loose blocks are found on the local beaches.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Early exploitation of the Binstead quarries began in Roman times, the stone being used in the construction of Portchester Castle in the second or early third century, and reached its peak in the Norman period. ¹
• Quarrying was concentrated in a single limestone lens, the Featherbed, developed in the centre of Binstead over a mappable oval area some 400 metres by 200; as the bed is only 60–70 cm thick it was a limited resource and had been worked out by early medieval times. ¹
• Quarr Stone, Binstead Stone and the Bembridge Limestone supplied significant amounts of stone for major building projects on the mainland including Winchester, Chichester and Canterbury cathedrals. ¹
• Quarr Stone, also known as Featherbed Limestone or Featherstone, is a cream to pale grey limestone quarried between Quarr Abbey and Binstead to the end of the fourteenth century and mostly exported to the mainland; the deposit was probably lenticular and was exhausted within 200 years, and no exposures are known today, though loose blocks can be found on the beaches. ²
• Quarr Stone is a coquina — a bivalve biosparite, originally a high-density, low-diversity accumulation of small non-marine bivalves swept together by storm action — with distinctive shell-filled burrows 2–5 cm wide and up to 20 cm long, and moulds left as voids where the shells dissolved after cementation. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Binstead quarry — Romsey Abbey Corbels
2. (secondary) Bembridge Limestones, Isle of Wight — Dorset Building Stone

Record created: 7 September 2026 · Last researched: 7 September 2026