Edited by BJ Smith and AV Turkington
Donhead Publishing 2004, £37-50, 320pp
ISBN 1 873394 57 8

An immensely complex area of study, stone decay and conservation is nowadays a multidisciplinary field requiring interdisciplinary solutions, and the dynamically-styled ‘SWAPNET’ (or, more prosaically, the ‘Stone Weathering and Atmospheric Pollution Network’) has met every year since 1995 to bring together two broad groups of researchers and practitioners who have common interests in the ways that stones decay. The first group – those interested in the weathering of rocks under natural environmental conditions – comprises geomorphologists and geologists, while the second – those concerned with the decay and conservation of building stones – includes architects, engineers and conservators. The former looks for theoretical explanations of why stone decays; the latter searches for practical solutions through appropriate treatments and management strategies.

Inevitably each group uses different terminology, but there is increasing recognition of the need to understand the processes responsible for decay in order to develop sound strategies for the conservation of stone buildings. Certainly, there are nuggets of useful information to be found in these selected proceedings from an international symposium on weathering held at Queen’s University Belfast in 2000, but other sections may prove a tad indigestible to architects and others at the metaphorical rockface of contemporary building design. For scientists researching into the causes of stone decay, however, there is some good bedtime reading to be had here on the impacts of pollution and the effectiveness of stone treatments. That said; this is not a book intended either for the coffee table or for those seeking an elementary primer on stone construction.