ROCK END MOOR DELPH was re opened in 1986 to supply stone for the restoration
of early Pennine houses, as gritstone had been out of use since the
late 19th century. This was mainly due to the difficulty of working
such an abrasive material using the newly developed machinery, the industry
favouring more evenly textured types of sandstone.
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The blocks are split from the bedrock using steel wedges driven into drillholes. Once separated, blocks weighing up to 15 tonnes are again drilled and wedged until they are small enough (about 2 tonnes) to pass through a stonesaw which cuts them into slabs to be worked by stonemasons using hammers and chisels, to produce finished work showing the unique, open grained, texture peculiar to this rock
