Bath Stone Quarries - Derek Hawkins, HB, 250mm x 250mm, 224pp, - publication of this book has been delayed until 18 December price £24.95 - I will offer post free on advance orders
Bath Stone Quarries is a comprehensive photographic record of the Bath stone industry from the mid-Victorian period to the present day. Its scope includes not just the surviving underground relics of the industry but also the surface tramways, loading wharfs and cutting yards associated with it.
The book traces the history of the industry up until the start of the Second World War, when many of the quarries were requisitioned for government use. The early phases of the government conversion work is covered, but the bigger wartime history of the quarries can be found in our sister volume, Second World War Secret Bunkers.
The story continues in the immediate post-war years, when quarrying resumed in a small number of quarries, while others were adapted for other peacetime uses. The new quarrying techniques employed at Westwood, Monks Park and Limpley Stoke are illustrated in some detail.
Topics covered include:
•The Combe Down and Claverton Down mines including open quarries, underground workings and associated tramways. The book covers their early history up to the recent infilling.
•Quarries and quarry tramways in the Avon Valley: Limpley Stoke, Conkwell, Murhill, Westwood, and all the little-known underground workings in Bradford-on-Avon.
•All the quarries on Farleigh Down, including Brown's Folly, Dapstone, Kingsdown, Longsplatt, etc along with the Farleigh Down tramway and sidings and the Kingsdown yard.
•Also covered, in some detail, the Box Quarries, tramways and masons yards, with many stunning archive images of Clift Quarry and other locations.
•Spring Quarry, the largest of all the Corsham quarries, is covered in great detail, as are Monks Park and Ridge quarries.
•Coverage is also given to the many smaller but still important quarries in the Corsham area, including Brewers Yard, Hollybush, Sands, Copenacre, Goodes Hill, Eastlays, Elm Park etc.
Derek Hawkins has spent his entire working life in the Bath and Corsham stone quarries. He began as a quarryman in Limpley Stoke Quarry in the early 1980s. Then he became Mine Manager at Monkton Farleigh Mine when it was open to the public. For the last twenty years he has been Quarry Safety Manager working for the MoD in Corsham.
Derek has been exploring the abandoned Bath stone quarries since his early teens. He is a passionate photographer and has accumulated a vast library of images of the quarries, many of the best of which are included in this book.
Derek also lectures on the subject of the underground stone quarries of Bath and North Wiltshire.
Mike
www.moorebooks.co.uk