Antique French Limestone Trough

A long antique French limestone trough with a deeply gouged exterior, the walls scored with heavy vertical marks and chipped along every edge. The color runs from pale bone through ash gray with scattered charcoal, and the surface is coarse enough that it changes with the light through the day. Inside, the floor slopes gently and is smoother than the outside; the rim is eroded and irregular along the whole length.

Overall it measures 85 inches wide, 31 1/2 inches deep and 25 inches high. The interior basin is 74 inches long, 22 inches wide and 16 inches deep, so the walls are thick and the trough holds a good body of water or soil. It is French farm stone, 18th or 19th century to judge by the shape. The eroded rim is stable.

Flush against a brick retaining wall it is a quiet linear water feature; beneath a row of bronze scuppers it catches a continuous sheet of water; on a covered patio it is a rustic open-air wash basin. Tumbled limestone pavers under it bring out the cooler gray in the stone, and weathered steel behind it sharpens the broken profile. This limestone trough has sold. Ask us what long troughs are in the yard or on the water and we will send photographs of what is current.