Just before he died unexpectedly in 2017, David Pollard completed a book he had spent a large part of his life researching and writing.

Now the book has been published by Lightmoor Press of Lydney, Gloucestershire, under the title of Digging Bath Stone – A Quarry and Transport History (ISBN: 9781911038 86 3).

David’s fascination with Bath Stone started with a cycle ride one Saturday in 1960 during which he explored the abandoned Park Lane Bath Stone quarry. In the 1980s he acquired his own Bath Stone quarry, the one at Hartham Park in Corsham, just outside Bath. It is the source of a particularly fine Bath Stone.

He would often correct people who called Hartham Park a mine, insisting it was an underground quarry because that is what the men who chopped and sawed the stone out of the ground by hand historically called it.

As producers of fine building stone used by stonemasons they considered themselves several notches above miners, who were the people who dug coal, tin and lead from mines.

David developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bath Stone industry and was delighted when his dream of seeing Hartham Park back in production was realised in 1999. It is still working today, operated by Lovell Stone Group.

This book serves as a testament to the man himself and the industry that fascinated him. In its 512 pages the production of Bath Stone going back 2,000 years and more is explored and explained, starting with a glossary of words and terms used by the quarrymen and concluding with an index for future reference.

We will review the book in full in the next issue of NSS.