Stone was rarely used as a building material, as it was not prevalent locally. Some churches and banks of the 19th and early 20th centuries were built of Bath or Portland stone, and Kentish ragstone was used for St Joseph's Church on Elm Grove, but few ordinary residential or commercial buildings have any stonework. Artificial stone was sometimes used for exterior features such as cornices and columns, though, especially during the Victorian era. Flint was historically a common building material as it was always readily available in Hove, Portslade, West Blatchington and Hangleton. Agricultural buildings and cottages used random (unknapped) flintwork extensively, as did all four parishes' ancient churches and others further east such as Ovingdean and Rottingdean. Flints were collected from the beach and the South Downs or dug out of the fields, where they were often found near the surface. A flint pit survived at Southern Cross near Portslade until the 20th century. It became popular again as a building material in the early 19th century, by which time several styles of flintwork had developed: rounded pebbles in seafront buildings, whole flints in rural cottages and agricultural buildings, knapped (split) flints, and random flintwork with brick dressings. The use of stone or brick quoins and dressings on flint walls, necessary for structural reasons, enhances the appearance of such buildings, sometimes to great decorative effect. Knapped flint was used particularly in farmhouses in nearby villages which later became part of the urban area: Court House and Down House in Rottingdean, Home Farmhouse in Withdean, Southdown House in Patcham and several houses in Ovingdean and Stanmer have them. The Sussex dialect includes specialist words for types of flint: the irregular joints between randomly laid knapped flints are snail-creeps, and rounded pebbles are pitchers. An old Brighton Vernacular style has been identified: small cottages with cobblestone walls laid in courses, whose windows and doors were edged with red brickwork. Many examples of this style were demolished during the mid 20th-century slum clearance programmes.