Cobblestone architecture

Cobblestone architecture refers to the use of cobblestones embedded in mortar as method for erecting walls on houses and commercial buildings.

Evidence of the use of cobblestones in building has been found in the ruins of Hierakonpolis in Egypt. Houses were built of mud brick set on cobblestone foundations and cobblestone architecture may have been used on a monumental scale to erect public administrative centers or palaces. Those structures are now collapsed into mounds of stone.

Cobbles, mostly flint, became a common building material from the Middle Ages onwards in England and a few parts of Northern Europe where they are easily found; this is usually known as "flint architecture" in England. Flushwork is a term for decorative patterns in flint and stone, usually including split stones for contrasting colour on the outer surface of the wall, while the unseen core consists of unsplit cobbles. Other areas just have unsplit cobbles on the outside of the wall, sometimes also carefully graded and arranged for a decorative effect.

Cobblestone architecture was developed in the northeastern United States, especially antebellum western New York state. Masons that built the Erie Canal during 1817-1825 started building cobblestone structures about the time the canal was finished. The stones used in the construction were typically of a rounded shape deposited in the area by glaciers, and cleared from the fields by early farmers, or brought from the shores of lake Ontario. Immigrants spread the style to other parts of the country, including an area of Wisconsin. Historians estimate that at least 75 percent, and possibly more than 90 percent, of American cobblestone buildings can be found within 70–75 miles of Rochester, New York. The style was prominent between 1835 and about 1860; around 900 cobblestone buildings were constructed in New York state before the American Civil War,. After the war, construction slowed; there were only two post-Civil War cobblestone structures known by author Noble. About 700 cobblestone homes remain in the Rochester area.

...
Wikipedia