Gornal stone

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Gornal stone is a type of sandstone from the Silurian period, found in the Gornal area of Central England. It belongs to the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation and can also be found near Netherton and in parts of Shropshire. Quarrying mainly took place in Lower Gornal, starting in the early 1800s and ending in 1971. In its peak, almost every building in the Sedgley manor area—including Coseley, Woodsetton and Ettingshall—was built from Gornal stone, and many yellow stones still stand in churches, houses, and old walls. The stone helped the Black Country grow industrially. It is almost pure silica with a high melting point. When ground into sand and mixed with fire clay, it made a hot, refractory coating used in steelmaking west of Birmingham. The stone also contains some of the earliest Hemicyclaspis murchisoni fossils.