Artist’s impression!

There aren’t many images of the Lost Hamlets of Gadd’s Green, Perry’s Lake and Turner’s Hill, because they mostly disappeared before photography was available, so here is an ‘Artist’s impression’, (though I hesitate to call myself an artist). I will upload some images of the quarries and their impact on the local landscape, as I am able to get permission to use them. But, as you can see, the landscape was grimy, gritty and not particularly pretty, although some local farms survived, up on the top of the hill!

My Primary School was situated down the hill and not far from the main quarry and our school days were punctuated by the bull sounding at regular times for blasting for granite, the Dolerite known as Rowley Rag, very hard and much in demand for road making and shaped stone such as setts and kerbstones.

There were many heaps of pit spoil dotting the landscape which made carefree adventure playgrounds for local children when I was growing up in Rowley in the 1950s, although I had not appreciated then what they were, to us they were just known as ‘The Bonk’ and were derelict land. All covered in new development now.