Index
All entries
Filed by what the stone did: cut, carried, left standing, or lived in. The estuary entries carry the tidal range they turn on.
The Galleries
Kilometres of worked-out space under the streets.- The town stands on its own quarryThe stone was taken from directly beneath the streets, leaving a worked-out level that is now cellar, mushroom bed and store. What was left standing, and why.
- Pillars left standingRoom-and-pillar by eye: how much rock had to stay to hold the roof.
- Saw marks at hand heightParallel kerfs left by hand saws, and what they say about the working method.
- The constant temperatureWhy a worked-out gallery is a cellar without any effort.
- What galleries becameWine, mushrooms, storage and shelter — successive uses of the same void.
- CollapseWhere the pillars were cut too thin, and what the surface shows afterwards.
Cut & Carriage
How the stone left, and what it built.- Downriver to build a cityBlocks cut here went down the Dordogne and Garonne to face the quays and facades of Bordeaux. Water carriage is why the quarry is where it is.
- Cutting to sizeSawn square at the face so nothing unnecessary was carried.
- The flat-bottomed bargeA shallow river boat built for stone and tide.
- Soft then hardThe stone cuts easily when freshly quarried and hardens on exposure.
- Weathering in a facadeHow the same bed behaves once it is a wall in a city.
The Cut Face
The town standing on what was taken out.- The citadel on the cutThe upper town sits directly on the quarried face, which is both foundation and cliff.
- Terraced streetsA street plan that follows the working, not the contour.
- Cellars under housesEvery house with a hole under it, and the survey that never quite existed.
- The river pathAlong the foot of the cliff, where the gallery mouths open.
Tide & Bore
The largest tidal range on the coast, and the wave that runs up it.- The largest range on the coastSpring tides here move water further vertically than anywhere else on the Atlantic seaboard. What that does to the banks.
- The boreA single wave running upriver against the current on the biggest tides.
- MudbanksBrown water, suspended sediment, and the bar that moves.
- The confluenceWhere the Dordogne and Garonne become one estuary.
- Fishing hutsSquare nets on stilts, worked on the turn of the tide.