Stone Quarry Landscapes

United Kingdom: Tempus Pub Ltd. Very Good. 2000. Illustrated Card Cover. 0752417517 Illustrated card cover. No ownership marks. Photographs, illustrations, maps. 160 pages clean and tight. In 1724 Daniel Defoe commented on a trip to Portland 'tis wonderful, and well worth the observation of the traveller to see the quarries in the rocks, from whence they are cut out, what stones, and of what prodigious a size are cut out there'. The use of stone is arguably one of the oldest industries known to man. However, the thousands of quarries and pits across the landscape have had only a passing mention in most archaeological records. Quarries were opened up all over the country, in many cases just for one project and then abandoned. They have become as much a part of the historic landscape as the traces of the old field systems, tracks or settlements. Despite its long tradition, however, quarrying has a less popular image than mining, with its more visible remains. Modern methods are partly to blame. Quarries are so easily dismissed as holes in the ground or a scar on the landscape, where all machinery has been removed, leaving little for the industrial archaeologist. However, on deeper investigation overgrown and abandoned pits and dumps tell much about the past and the quarrymen and masons who worked them. .