Ham & Doulting Stone Co based in Charlton Adam, Somerset, hope to be offering a new source of Bath stone this spring when planning permission is secured.

They plan to re-open Park Lane Quarry near Neston, Wiltshire, from which stone was last extracted in the late 1960s. Work stopped then not because the stone ran out but because the lease ran out.

The mine is on the estate of Sir James Fuller, where the television programme Lark Rise to Candleford is filmed.

Opening up the mine will require a new roadway through the woods and Ham & Doulting also plan to create a new opening to the mine so that they can drive into it.

The entrance to the mine had been closed securely when work stopped and they had to dig their way back in through 8m of rubble.

They plan to buy a Fantini saw for cutting the stone from the mine, but say since they first enquired about it the fall in the exchange rate between sterling and the euro has added £50,000 to the price, which currently stands at £270,000.

Zak England, who runs Ham & Doulting Stone Co with his father, Richard, says there’s a seam of Bath stone a good 6m high running through the mine, the tunnels in which cover 26 acres. Zak says it takes 10 hours to walk along them all.

He says the mine is only about a mile from Hanson Bath & Portland’s Monks Park Bath stone mine, but that the stone from it is more like that from Hartham Park, another Hanson mine, and Elm Park, operated by Wessex Dimensional Stone.

The Bath stone will add to the Doulting and Ham Hill stone that they quarry. They also produce White Lias and hope to develop two Blue Lias quarries they are looking at.

They say they can supply samples of all the stones they offer as well as the new Bath stone.