Hopton Wood Stone

The quarry was first owned by the Gell family and later by Hopton-Wood Stone Firms Ltd. The stone was called "England's premier decorative stone" and described as "remarkably and exceptionally pure limestone, almost identical to marble," with impurities at 0.02%.

History

In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Hopton as having "good building limestone, (which) is extensively quarried, and was the material of Chatsworth House and Belvoir Castle. Lead ore also occurs."

Following World War I, Hopton Wood Stone was used by the Imperial War Graves Commission to supply headstones, with over 120,000 being created and sent to war cemeteries in Britain, Belgium, and France. The limestone is said to have been laid in conjunction with a "native black stone" to create the first chequerboard floor in England.

It has also been used in decorative work, including the Houses of Parliament, the Bank of England, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Chatsworth House, Hopton Hall, the University of Oxford, several cathedrals, and Oscar Wilde's tomb, among others.

In 1947 the Hopton-Wood Stone Firms Ltd commissioned a book about Hopton Wood stone, published by Fanfare press.

Long connected to Middleton Mine direcrtly south on the Hopton Via Gellia, the sites were in operation from the 18th century onwards, the quarry system extracted "4-500,000 tons" of limestone a year until operations ended in 2006.