Peter Stainer has written books about quarries, mines, and parts of the West Country. His latest, South West Stone Quarries, looks at the processes involved in the extraction and conversion of building stone from mines and quarries in that part of the country.

There is history, but the book also includes his first-hand accounts of visiting the quarries and seeing the stone extracted, sawn and shaped, illustrated with his photographs.

His tour includes visits to Bath stone underground quarries, Purbeck, Portland, Ham Hill and Doulting quarries, before heading up into the Cotswolds and across to the Forest of Dean on his way into Cornwall.

Peter Stanier was born in Liskeard, Cornwall, where his early childhood memories include seeing men working the granite. Having left the county, he used his interest in granite to gain a PhD at the University of Southampton in 1985. He is now an authority on the industrial archaeology of all types of stone quarries and has written various papers and books on the subject. His books include South West Granite, Mines of Cornwall & Devon and Quarries of England & Wales.

He is a member of the Association for Industrial Archaeology and edited its quarterly Industrial Archaeology News for many years. These days he lives with his family in Shaftesbury, Dorset, where he is a freelance lecturer and writer.

His new, 216-page book (ISBN 978 0906294833) is available from bookshops and from the publisher, Twelveheads Press (www.twelveheads.com), for £18 including p&p.