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Digging Bath Stone by David Pollard
Reviewed by Alan Payne June 2021 When David Pollard decided he wanted to write the complete history of the stone quarry industry in the Box and Corsham area, he couldn’t have chosen a broader, more difficult subject. He worked on his project for most of his life although, sadly, he passed away a short time before it was published. He would have been delighted with the finished result. His book Digging Bath Stone is simply magnificent, the most completely authoritative review of the whole industry, an encyclopaedic tour-de-force. The book covers every aspect of the industry, location of the quarries, the workers who extracted the stone, the firms who employed them, how the stone was transported and the houses which were built for quarry employees. It focuses on the Box and Corsham quarries but also looks at Combe Down owned by Ralph Allen in Bath, Bradford-on-Avon, Avon Valley and Limpley Stoke and Freshford. Some of the detail is truly remarkable, impossible to pick out the fabulous information from the fascinating but, because this website is centred on Box, I have limited my comments to just local village information. |
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Box Quarry Industry
Reviewing the work is virtually impossible. How can you summarise an encyclopaedic, comprehensive reference work which truly appreciates the lifestyle and history of the Box area? I extracted just a few insightful details about Box which appeal to me, out of a possible choice of many thousand.
Pictor’s Box Hill Tramway - page 426 onwards of book
The Box Hill Tramway photo dated 1907 on page 428 is the only-known photograph of the tramway being used. In the distance is Brunel's Tunnel. I like to think that David must have been thrilled to discover the photo for the first time just we should be when we view it in the book.
(On 20 January 1864) Robert Pictor applied to lay down a tramway on Box Hill between the Clift Quarry and their wharf on the GWR at Box… by the side of the old turnpike road. Under an agreement with the Turnpike Trust dated 19th May 1864, Pictor & Sons had to pay a yearly rent of £5 for the tramway to cross the road on the level. In November 1864, Pictors (requested) the Trustees to forgo (the rent because) it has been avoided by carrying the Tramway under the road. Hence was born the bridge which is now the Box Tunnel viewing platform.
Rawlings Field Quarry (later known as Strong’s Mouth) - page 241-42 of book
The map on page 241 dated 1847 shows the Hazelbury Quarry with extensive areas owned or occupied Thomas Strong, including two limekilns, a tramroad with cranes and possibly a circular track around a horse engine to drive a stone-turning lathe. Rawlings Field quarry and Strong’s Mouth were filled in circa 1960 and the area is now known as Box Hill Common Lower.
This field lay on the south side of, and abutted up to, the original Hazelbury Quarry. In 1688, Thomas Sumpsion, a freemason, gave in his will the Quarry and piece of land adjoining, lying at Haslebury at the west side of the Highway towards Box. In 1947 Box Parish Council became concerned about danger (and an old quarryman Owen Bishop recalled) that the stone was cut underground and loaded onto wagons .. through Strong’s Mouth .. down to Quarry Hill and Box Station.
Stone Firms' Houses - page 478 onwards of book
In 1899, the Bath Stone Firms authorised the building of the first of what became a small estate of workers' houses at Box ... known locally as "Firm's Houses". The houses shown include The Court, Laura Place, Box Hill Cottages, The Tynings, Albion Terrace and many others.
Reviewing the work is virtually impossible. How can you summarise an encyclopaedic, comprehensive reference work which truly appreciates the lifestyle and history of the Box area? I extracted just a few insightful details about Box which appeal to me, out of a possible choice of many thousand.
Pictor’s Box Hill Tramway - page 426 onwards of book
The Box Hill Tramway photo dated 1907 on page 428 is the only-known photograph of the tramway being used. In the distance is Brunel's Tunnel. I like to think that David must have been thrilled to discover the photo for the first time just we should be when we view it in the book.
(On 20 January 1864) Robert Pictor applied to lay down a tramway on Box Hill between the Clift Quarry and their wharf on the GWR at Box… by the side of the old turnpike road. Under an agreement with the Turnpike Trust dated 19th May 1864, Pictor & Sons had to pay a yearly rent of £5 for the tramway to cross the road on the level. In November 1864, Pictors (requested) the Trustees to forgo (the rent because) it has been avoided by carrying the Tramway under the road. Hence was born the bridge which is now the Box Tunnel viewing platform.
Rawlings Field Quarry (later known as Strong’s Mouth) - page 241-42 of book
The map on page 241 dated 1847 shows the Hazelbury Quarry with extensive areas owned or occupied Thomas Strong, including two limekilns, a tramroad with cranes and possibly a circular track around a horse engine to drive a stone-turning lathe. Rawlings Field quarry and Strong’s Mouth were filled in circa 1960 and the area is now known as Box Hill Common Lower.
This field lay on the south side of, and abutted up to, the original Hazelbury Quarry. In 1688, Thomas Sumpsion, a freemason, gave in his will the Quarry and piece of land adjoining, lying at Haslebury at the west side of the Highway towards Box. In 1947 Box Parish Council became concerned about danger (and an old quarryman Owen Bishop recalled) that the stone was cut underground and loaded onto wagons .. through Strong’s Mouth .. down to Quarry Hill and Box Station.
Stone Firms' Houses - page 478 onwards of book
In 1899, the Bath Stone Firms authorised the building of the first of what became a small estate of workers' houses at Box ... known locally as "Firm's Houses". The houses shown include The Court, Laura Place, Box Hill Cottages, The Tynings, Albion Terrace and many others.
Quarrymen at Clift Quarry in the 1890s with David (Eight-foot) Milsom standing on his own in the centre (page 74)
The book comprises 512 pages printed on gloss art paper, with over 600 photographs (the majority of the Box ones have never been published before), 602 line-drawings and maps and 75 informative tables. If you are interested in the subject, I guarantee that you will have many happy hours exploring all the details above and below ground. The book is priced at £50 and is available from https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/digging-bath-stone/L8863 and the Corsham Bookshop.