RJ Schaffer
Donhead Publishing 2004, £33.00, 208pp
ISBN 1 873394 69 1

Some books never go out of date even if they go out of print, and Schaffer’s research into the weathering of natural stone is rightly considered a "classic". First published in 1932, this is still one of the most useful reference works available and should be in the office of every building professional whose job includes the specification or repair of stone.

Originally produced in response to concerns from the Imperial War Graves Commission and the authorities of Westminster Abbey on the effects of airborne pollution, Schaffer spent six years trawling through over 250 books and papers on the subject of weathering as well as visiting quarries throughout the UK, and his archive of site notes, photographs, samples and analyses is held – and still regularly used – by BRE. This is unsurprising because, although stone is used in quite different ways today and the nature of our environmental pollution is no longer the acidic fug of the 1920’s, the chapters on the causes of weathering are still fundamentally accurate.

For a publication whose raison d’être necessarily embraces questions of chemical composition and reaction, the writing reassuringly avoids being overly scientific and concentrates instead on ensuring the issues involved are fully understood. Importantly, Schaffer identifies many weathering problems caused by poor specification, design errors and faulty craftsmanship, and the lessons to be learned from the examples given still apply today. In the area of stone cleaning, however, practice has moved on to less aggressive treatments than those recommended in these pages.