 
Quarries
Journey round the small roads of Nailsworth such as Butcher Hill’s
Lane and Watledge, Cossack Square, Chestnut Hill and Spring Hill and
you will find many cottages and houses built from locally quarried
stones. Before this
 houses would have originally been built using
wood, lathes, wattle and daub, with thatched roofs, until the
opening up of the quarries to provide building stone.
The largest quarry was at Balls Green situated at the end of Pensile
Road consisting of several miles of tunnel. It was worked for about
100 years, closing in the early 1940’s.The bedrock was free from
defects and could be quarried in huge blocks and was very good stone
for making staircases. Some was used in the interior of the new
Houses of Parliament in 1835. Most of the stone, once it had dried
out, became very durable and could be cut to size with frame saws to
be used to build the larger local houses. Rubble stone was used in
the building of many of the old cottages, giving each one its own
special characteristics.
The next largest quarry was at Rockness extending someway
underground. There was also an underground lime kiln here where
lime was burnt and broken down to provide fertilizer for the
farmers, lime plaster for builders and lime wash for painting house
walls.
The quarries on the Bath Road, Bunting Hill and around
Minchinhampton Common were all open quarries. There were other
quarries at Culver Hill, the ‘W’, Scar Hill, and Shortwood which
only extended a short distance into the hills. Some stone was
broken up and used for road building, some for dry stone walls and
the more durable weather stone was split for use as roofing tiles.
 Later some red, blue, and yellow brick was used locally, when bricks
could be easily delivered via road or railway.
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