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 benefical 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

Cobblestones set in sand have the environmental advantage of being permeable paving.

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 some places such as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, as late as the 1990s some busy intersections still showed cobblestones through worn down sections of pavement.

Notes 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.

Cobblestone

See also