Hopton Wood Marble from Derbyshire is to be produced again by a new firm set up by Albert Rockach, of the family that runs industrial minerals company Deepwood Mining.

The company producing the stone, available in various and a green basalt from a 100 acre quarry previously run by Tarmac is called Classic Hopton Wood Marble.

Rockach says it has been 120 years the Derbyshire Black Marble was quarried. He says the reason it is still in the quarry is because nobody previously new it was there.

Deepwood Mining bought a lot of land around the Tarmac quarry in the 1970s and bought the Tarmac quarry itself about 15 years ago, says Rockach.

Now he has found the Marble he plans to spend £500,000 initially in saws and a tiling line and says supplies will be available again from May this year.

Hopton Wood Marble has a distinguished lineage. It has been used in many of the country\'s most important buildings - the Houses of Parliament, Victoria & Albert Museum, Birmingham Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Town Hall Manchester and the Imperial Institute, London, among others.

The Marble was used by artist-letterer and sculptor Eric Gill for lettering and bas relief carvings he produced in Westminster Cathedral.