A broken down dry-stone wall enticed me to scramble over for a gander and I stumbled upon an old sandstone quarry I never knew existed with a view of Roseberry from an angle I’ve not seen before.
Ah, the uncomplicated pleasures of discovery.
It wasn’t a large quarry, and a quick count reveals it to be one of twelve mapped between Roseberry summit and Easby Moor. These all worked the Jurassic rock strata, a superior quality stone much used for building — in the houses of the villages, farmsteads, churches, bridges, and the extensive dry-stone walls that line the moors.
Dating when quarries were in use is difficult, yet we can see that this quarry found its place on the O.S. Map surveyed in 1853. It doesn’t seem implausible to suggest that the extraction of stone began much earlier, perhaps predating the 17th century. Standard procedure involved sledging the raised stone down, gently descending through the natural pull of gravity. A scrutiny of the LIDAR map indeed hints at the vestiges of a holloway leading downward to Gribdale.
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