Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Seems we are on a bit of a History roll , anyone know where all the slate was quarried for use as roofing material on all the houses in Lancashire, remember from my days at skoo that Wales was a big producer,seems a long way to go, was there anywhere nearer , seems there were lots of stone quarries around but don't remember any talk of Slate being quarried locally
Thx.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Have aread of this Slate industry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

i remember going to festinog in wales on work experience and tehre was a slate mine/quary but i dont recall if it was still active but they sure had a lot of prints on slate for sale.I recall been tod that it was its biggest trade years ago .

my guess would be a lot of it came form wales

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Interesting read ,thanks , never knew the Lake District was a Slate producing area

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Most in Ossy came from Wales.

Perhaps it came by barge.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Thinking about it, most homes pre-industrial revolution, seem to have stone roofs, made from local sandstone.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Just found this, which backs up what I thought.

The terraced housing was invariably built of the local Pennine sandstone. Door and window surrounds, gate piers and copings would give emphasis by the use Ashlar. Early housing had local sandstone roofs but following introduction of improved transport links such as the canal and then the railway, Welsh slate became the predominant roofing material.
Pendle Borough Council - Lomeshaye Bridge Mill

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

This makes interesting reading.

Building materials
Writing in the Buildings of England volume for Lancashire, Alec Clifton-Taylor inaccurately
stated that ‘industrial Lancashire was largely built of brick’ (Pevsner 1969, 37). In particular
he cited the use of the hard, bright red bricks made by the brickworks at Accrington and
known as ‘Accrington bloods’. Whilst it is true that brick was usually the preferred
construction material of the later nineteenth century mills and workshops, and was widely
used for housing in the towns of west Lancashire, in the east Lancashire industrial towns
gritstone was the preferred building material. Accrington, the source of so much of the
brick used elsewhere and considered unsightly by architectural historians like Clifton-
Taylor, is notable for its relative lack of brick-built structures (Pevsner 1969, 45). Locally
quarried Carboniferous gritty sandstones were used for most housing and corporate
buildings, and for the majority of ecclesiastical and educational buildings as well.
Accrington brick does appear occasionally, usually in structures where its brightness
complements a building’s flamboyant design. A good example of this is the Post Office
Arcade, built in the 1890s. Indeed, throughout east Lancashire, brick is often reserved for
‘special’ buildings. It has been noted, for example, that the majority of pre-1914 brick-built
houses are architect designed quality residences (Atkinson 1972, 70)

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

(Continued.)

The majority of structures are built in locally quarried gritstone, however (Whalley nd). Of
all pre-1914 built structures, 92% were built using gritstone and only 8% in brick (Atkinson
1972, 8). The uses of gritstone vary from ashlared masonry, as utilised in corporate
buildings, to roughly hewn blocks for most residential buildings. Most of the earlier
domestic and former agricultural structures have uncoursed rubble side walls with
watershot front and rear elevations. Virtually all of the surviving vernacular style buildings
pre-dating 1840 have watershot stone frontages. Some such buildings built between 1840
and 1850 also have this feature, but after 1850 this building method appears to have
ceased in Accrington. Post-1850 working-class housing and utilitarian structures, like the
later byelaw housing, tends to have coursed rubble walls

Despite a century of industrial pollution followed by often misguided attempts to clean
buildings of their smoke blackening, Accrington’s stone buildings show remarkably little
sign of erosion. The hard-wearing nature of the local stone, its ubiquity of occurrence and
its versatility for use in various forms made it the preferred choice for local building. In
addition, gritstone was the traditionally used material perhaps best suited to parochial
conservative tastes (Atkinson 1972, 69). By contrast, the locally made brick may have
been primarily for export to towns less well-resourced with workable building stone, and to
larger urban centres more open to progressive architectural tastes (Atkinson 1972, 70).
Roofs were, at least originally, covered in sandstone flags. Welsh slate was imported for
use in some buildings, but many roofs today have had such materials replaced with lighter
and now less expensive substitutes

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

I had a cottage in Hassy with a stone roof G. what a ball ache that was, I was forever pointing the bloody thing:eek:

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

When the housing boom came along in Accrington, several new streets appeared in the Woodnook area, most of them in the Royds St to Hill St built with Accy Nori bricks, and blue slate roofs, stone face fronts, the bricks in my daughters house are Nori engineering grade, I know because I've had to drill a lot holes for different fixings.
Retlaw.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

You any drill bits left after that?

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

When the boys were little we went to the North Wales slate quarries and the narrow guage railways that took the slates to the coast (Porthmadog) some of our older cottages have stone roofs but they are very, very heavy as are modern concrete ones

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Yes all of them, when drilling Nori I regrind the drill as if I was going to drill steel, and switch the hammer action off. Its the hammer action when drilling Nori that chips the tungsten carbide tips.
I also keep all my blunt or damaged turning tool tungsten carbide tips, and use then to repair my drill bits.

Retlaw.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Took the words out of my mouth Retlaw regarding taking off the hammer for Nori learnt that many moons ago:)

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Why on earth would you want to do that??:confused: Should have stuck to wood butchery.:hidewall::D:D

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Ya might well duck behind the wall Beni, even wood has to be fixed to Nori's:D:D

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

during the victorian era north wales was the largest producer and exporter of roof and building slate slate in the world. the largest slate mining areas being around llechwedd, blenau ffestiniog, and llanberis. each area having its own particular slate ie. you can tell quite easily which area the slate comes from by its colour, the pigmentation of the slate is due to the various minerals that filter through the hefty grantie which sits over the slate reserves and finally into the slate. for example if you were to go to the quarry at Llanberis you would find the slate to be a light blue/green colour due to the large amounts of copper that filters into it.
Sadly in later years it became cheaper to import slate from abroad and the slate quarries of north wales slowly died out, however in more recent times a number of the quarries have reopened utilising the "slate tips" ie all the unusable slate that was dumped on the hillsides around the quarries, much like the slag heaps of coal mines. this slate is now being used as foundation material and also for decorative purposes such as driveways etc. it is also ground into a fine powder and used as a base for cement and believe it or not.................................. WOMEN'S MAKE-UP!!!!!!!!

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

From just one quarry 'At least twelve ship loads a month were sailing to Liverpool'.

The History of Quarrying - The Industrial Revolution in the Slate Industry

Which I suppose could easily have been transported here, via the Leeds/Liverpool canal.

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

'The majority of the roofs of the buildings in the Conservation Area
are covered with blue slate, not locally derived. The opening of the
railway in the mid 19th century enabled the cheaper and lighter
Welsh slate to be imported for local use. This replaced the locally
derived sandstone flags that were used as a roofing material.'

http://www.hyndburnbc.gov.uk/downloa..._CAA_Final.pdf

Re: Where did all the Slate used on roofs come from
 

Have a look at this site.

Burlington Stone New :: Home.

A pleasure to work with.:)