[mk_stjames]

I live in a late 18th-century rowhouse where there is large stonework for window sills/surrounds/doorways all done in a very specific pink granite that was carved from a shoreline quarry a significant distance away. Massive stones, 100kg+ each, had to be transported by horse-drawn cart, over not-easy-terrain, a distance that would have taken two horses probably 8-9 hours per trip, and enough stones that it was probably 15-20 trips. Let alone the effort that had to have been required to carve surprisingly square/cuboid shapes from solid granite without power tools. It's mindblowing to me that someone was able to afford such a home construction, let alone the time taken to do it, in ~ 1790. It isn't a particularly rare style in this neighborhood either.

Fast forward 200 years, and I was sweating at the cost just to hire someone to deliver new hardwood countertops from a place not much further away. By truck. By a single person. In a single afternoon. No horses required.

[eszed]

Are you anywhere near (the remains of?) a canal network? That was how bulk cargo was generally transported in the 18th century. First-mile + last-mile would be by wagon, of course, though usually pulled by oxen, not horses. Canals were economically revolutionary, for 100-150 years, until railroads largely supplanted them. They remained viable, in limited circumstances (ie, some routes for some cargos), until the mid-20th century.

[mk_stjames]

Astute observation; no canal, but there is a river outflow to a bay, whereby a ship could have carried stones from the quarry, albeit a long way around a peninsula; it is possible that was a more effective way to get them close, and then use horse and cart to get them the last bit of distance.

Thinking about the logistics of such a feat at that time is wild to me for just the construction of a private residence.

[nerdponx]

And it's easy to miss them as several have been covered over or filled in, depending on where you are and how big it was.