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Picture Gallery 1

1898 Advertising flyer for Killer Brothers, showing Hopton-Wood Stone Quarry at Middleton-by-Wirksworth.

Early photograph of banker masons with their work at Hopton No. 1 Quarry.  The building in the background still exists.

A recent aerial view of Middleton-by-Wirksworth.  Geological features are marked.  This is the same quarry as depicted in the 1898 flyer.  It was smaller then, and 43 houses in the village remained undisturbed!

A detail from the geological map of the area, showing the relative position of the Hopton-Wood Stone series within the Bee-Low sequence.

A view of the interior of the quarry in the 1920's.  The rail link is clearly shown.  The derrick crane in the quarry bottom has been erected to exploit the 'sink hole' area of the quarry.  Block stone ready for working is piled in the foreground.  Chutes for loading rail wagons with roadstone are arranged on  the bluff to the left.

A detail taken from a general view of the Hopton Number 1 Quarry.  The jubilee in the foreground was used to cart stone to the sidings extended to the quarry from the Cromford and High Peak railway, above Middleton Top engine house.

A similar view in the same quarry.  Close study reveals the general tools of the trade, cobbing hammers, bars, picks and barrows.  The layout of the mineral tracks was obviously very extensive.

This view of the Hopton quarries shows a different style of jubilee, more usual in Derbyshire quarries.  The industry of the men filling them is justified, no doubt, by their formally attired overseer!

The detail of this shot gives a good impression of the scale of the workings at the Middleton site.

It is interesting to note that this new steel gantry crane is situated on the opposite side of the road to the original crane and stone buildings erected some years earlier.  It was, according to a reliable source, removed in about 1938.  The only remaining identifiable feature of these structures is the section of wall in the foreground with unusual triangular section limestone copings, gritstone copings being much more characteristic of the local style for walling.

An invoice dated Oct 24th 1890, to the "Executors of the late Mrs Doxey, to the inscription on headstone containing 10 dozens of letters, painting and cleaning and of fixing same in Churchyard, £1 1s 0d.  To ministering of Sextons fees 3s 6d.  Total £1 4s 6d"  appended "Rec'd Nov 1 90, Wm Killer" 

Send mail to jeremy@jeremyhewitt.co.uk with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2001 Jeremy Hewitt
Last modified: May 14, 2002

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