The Building Stones Project – 1000 Years of Building with Stone – is the latest project run by the Earth Heritage Trust, based at the University of Worcester. It is a 3½ year Lottery funded community history project aiming to investigate the wealth of stone buildings in the 2 counties, and linking them to the quarries which yielded the stone used to build them.

Much information about vernacular buildings and local small quarries is not yet known or is in danger of being lost. This project hopes to learn about the buildings, the people who owned and occupied them, who obtained the stone (and how), the people employed in the quarries, how it was transported, and how far, and other information which will put together a comprehensive picture of stone and its place in local communities and the built landscape.

It is based around volunteers who will be trained to gather information about the stone buildings in their local area, online, on the ground, in the archives, and in discussion with local people.

There is an obvious link to this project with the TVGS, and we have formed a local group to focus on the Teme Valley, initially in Martley and surrounding parishes and hopefully extending further up and down the valley as we develop our working methods and linking with any other groups who may form within the project.

The nucleus of the Teme Valley group has met to look at the scope of the work and how to take it forward, and we now need as many others who are interested to join the group and take part in this exciting opportunity. Already we have identified many stone buildings in Martley which we didn’t realise were there and are beginning to assemble a comprehensive list.

If you are interested in any of the following activities:

•  Map surveys

• Photographing buildings

• Learning how to use archives

• Online research

• Asking people about the history of their buildings and local quarries

• Assisting in technical/scientific stone analysis

• Data collection and collation

please contact me, on for more information on how to volunteer, or for more background on the project.

You can follow the project blog at http://lostquarries.wordpress.com/ , or on Twitter via @BuildingStones.