Fake 195

We paid a first visit for a while to the big glasshouse at Wisley yesterday. Plenty of plants of interest, but there was also the matter of the ground level paths. At first glance some kind of rough cut red-brown stone, but then one puzzled about it being in sheets, that is to say neatly cut into chunks of around 3 metres square. Which was a bit big for slabs of natural stone.

But the game was actually given away by an accidental crack, snapped above.

Revealing what appeared to be a surprisingly thin concrete screed, which I don't think could have been laid on soil, as might appear here. There must be something a bit more substantial below or it would be cracking all over the place. 

On the other hand, from the way that it has chipped, I would say that this was a hard concrete with a high cement content and a high compressive strength. But in the absence of reinforcing bars, and this concrete looks too thin for that, it would still be quite brittle, apt to break up over voids or soft spots.

A clever bit of trowel work, plus some fancy paint to give the stone effect finish?

PS 1: STOP PRESS: 07:11 Thursday morning: Google Image Search seems to have gone offline, with the usual links being silent. Not even an error message. A very unusual event. Other Google services seem to be up and running. 

PS 2: Readers who are too young to know about stop press can always ask Gemini. I am sure that he would know all about it.

PS 3: Zana from Match is still at it this morning. See reference 2.

A person who does not really exist as 'Zana' does not appear in Withycombe. But I do learn that of the seven names listed under 'Z', six are from the Hebrew and one ('Zoë') from the Greek. The very last name in the book, as it happens, which may account for its popularity. The first is 'Aaron', said to be Egyptian rather than Hebrew.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/fake-194.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/dating.html.

Group search key: fakesk.