Cobblestone

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Typical Portuguese patterned cobblestone paving in Santarém, Portugal.

Cobblestones are stones used in the pavement of early streets. Smooth stones were usually taken from riverbeds and cobbled (roughly assembled). They are typically either set in sand or similar material, or are bound together with mortar. Paving with cobblestones allows a road to be heavily used all year long. It prevents the buildup of ruts often found in dirt roads. It has the additional beneficial advantage of not getting muddy in wet weather and dusty in dry weather. A disadvantage is that when compared with modern surfaces, cobblestone paving is quite loud with carriage wheels, horse hooves and modern automobiles.

A cobblestone-covered street

Italian cobblestone-covered street in Isola Bella

Cobblestones set in sand have the environmental advantage of being permeable paving, and of flexing (rather than cracking) with movements in the ground.

Cobblestoned streets gradually gave way to macadam roads, and later to tarmac, and finally to asphalt at the beginning of the 20th century. However, cobblestones are often retained in historic areas, even for streets with vehicular traffic. Many older villages and cities in Europe still are paved with cobblestones. In recent decades cobblestones have become a popular material for paving newly pedestrianised streets in Europe.

In New York City many of the older streets are paved in cobblestones. In some places such as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, as late as the 1990s some busy intersections still showed cobblestones through worn down sections of pavement. The city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, richly influenced by many European architectural features, is well known for its many cobblestone streets, still operational and in good condition. They are still maintained and repaired the old fashion way, by placing and arranging granite stones by hand.

Primitive style of cobblestone work using natural stone. This method would require selecting rocks with a distinctive flat side, regardless of size, and place this side up, forming a uniform, smooth surface.Province of Misiones, Argentina

Note that Cobble is a generic geology term for any stone having dimensions between 64–256 mm (2.5–10 inch). Cobbles are also known as "cassies" or "setts" in the Scots language.

[edit] Cobblestone architecture

In Western New York State, the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age left numerous small, rounded cobblestones available for building materials as settlers moved in. Pre Civil War architecture in the region made heavy use of cobblestones for walls. Today, fewer than 600 remaining cobblestone buildings are highly prized as historic locations, although most of them remain private homes. They are clustered south of Lake Ontario, between Buffalo and Syracuse. In addition to homes, cobblestones were used to build barns, stagecoach taverns, smokehouses, stores, churches, schools, factories and cemetery markers. The history of building with cobblestones and 17 driving tours to see the remaining structures are found in "Cobblestone Quest - Road Tours of New York's Historic Buildings." [1]