Ashford Black Marble is the name given to a dark limestone, quarried from mines near Ashford-in-the-Water, in Derbyshire, England. Once cut, turned and polished, its shiny black surface is highly decorative. Ashford Black Marble is a very fine-grained sedimentary rock, and is not a true marble in the geological sense. It can be cut and inlaid with other decorative stones and minerals, using a technique known as pietra dura.
The mineral has been used decoratively since prehistoric times; the first recorded customer was Bess of Hardwick in 1580. [1]
Henry Watson, the uncle of Derbyshire geologist White Watson, is regarded as one of the key figures in the development of the local industry of inlaying Ashford Black Marble in the 1750s. [2] He owned a water-powered mill at Ashford in the Water.
There was a thriving trade in the manufacture of urns, obelisks and other decorative items from Ashford Black Marble during the late 18th and early 19th century. John Mawe had a museum in Matlock Bath that dealt in black marble and Ann Rayner engraved pictures, next door at another museum, on black marble using a diamond. Many fine examples of engraved and inlaid black marble exist in local collections, including those of Derby Museum, Buxton Museum, [3] and Chatsworth House. In 2009 huge blocks of unworked Ashford Black Marble were unearthed during excavation work near to the Seven Stars public house in Derby. The plan was to auction them due to the rarity of unworked Ashford Black marble. It was speculated that the rocks had been abandoned when an Ashford Black Marble manufacturer moved in the 1880s. [4]
Although referred to as marble, the rock is of purely sedimentary origin. It is a dark, fine-grained, muddy Carboniferous limestone, rich in bitumen which gives it its dark grey colouration which turns a glossy black when polished and surface treated. The prime source of this rock was from Arrock Mine, and later in 1832 from nearby Rookery Plantation, [1] near Ashford-in-the-Water.
The limestone can be turned on a lathe to create urns, candlesticks and other similar objects, or sawn to produce smooth, flat items such as obelisks and paperweights. Derby Museum and Art Gallery holds collections of worked and part-worked items of Ashford Black Marble, acquired from an inlaying workshop owned by the Tomlinson family. This includes a range of pre-cut pieces ready for inlaying into the black marble background. Items such as forget-me-not and lily of the valley flowers would typically be represented. Coloured rocks to inlay into the black "marble" included grey, blue and purple minerals locally from Monyash, "rosewood" from Nettler Dale in Sheldon which consisted of red and white layers, barytes which created other variations, [1] the local Castleton Blue John which could create purple, and yellow flourspar from Crich, [6] whilst "Birds-Eye" rock had a design made from the fossils that it contained. The rarest mineral was known as "Duke's Red" and this was so valuable that it was stored at Chatsworth House. [1] The tabletop design illustrated shows some of the combinations described here.
In the late 1780s Derbyshire geologist White Watson began to create explanatory geological tablets using Ashford Black Marble into which other local rocks were inlaid so as to represent the strata of the rocks in different parts of the county. [7] Derby Museum has a diagram of Ecton Hill (see picture) made from Ashford Black Marble and other minerals. [8]
William Martin, who at one time worked with Watson, wrote the first scientific study of fossils. His Petrifacta Derbiensia recounts that White Watson's uncle and workers at the Black Marble quarry called some of the fossils "crocodile tails" as they thought they were the remains of crocodiles. [5]
The craft of inlaying black marble was resumed in the 1990s by Don Edwards, who ran a rock and mineral dealership in the Derbyshire village of Tideswell. In 2006 it was announced that Buxton Museum had purchased the Black Marble collection that had been left by John Michael Tomlinson. He had spent over 50 years putting together the collection after finding that his ancestors had been involved in Ashford Black Marble manufacturing. [9] Derby Museum has a diagram of Ecton Hill made from Ashford Black Marble and other minerals. [8]
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated, although there are exceptions. In geology, the term marble refers to metamorphosed limestone, but its use in stonemasonry more broadly encompasses unmetamorphosed limestone. Marble is commonly used for sculpture and as a building material.
The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorland is found and the geology gritstone, and the White Peak, a limestone area with valleys and gorges. The Dark Peak forms an arc on the north, east and west sides; the White Peak covers central and southern tracts. The historic Peak District extends beyond the National Park, which excludes major towns, quarries and industrial areas. It became the first of the national parks of England and Wales in 1951. Nearby Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and Sheffield send millions of visitors – some 20 million live within an hour's ride. Inhabited from the Mesolithic era, it shows evidence of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Settled by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, it remained largely agricultural; mining arose in the Middle Ages. Richard Arkwright built cotton mills in the Industrial Revolution. As mining declined, quarrying grew. Tourism came with the railways, spurred by the landscape, spa towns and Castleton's show caves.
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills, and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the north-west, West Yorkshire to the north, South Yorkshire to the north-east, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the west and south-west, and Cheshire to the west. Kinder Scout, at 636 metres (2,087 ft), is the highest point and Trent Meadows, where the River Trent leaves Derbyshire, the lowest at 27 metres (89 ft). The north–south River Derwent is the longest river at 66 mi (106 km). In 2003 the Ordnance Survey named Church Flatts Farm at Coton in the Elms near Swadlincote as Britain's furthest point from the sea. Derby is a unitary authority area, but remains part of the ceremonial county. The non-metropolitan county has 30 towns of 10,000–100,000 inhabitants, but much sparsely populated farming upland.
Buxton is a spa town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is England's highest market town at some 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level. It lies close to Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south on the edge of the Peak District National Park. The municipal borough merged in 1974 with places that included Glossop to form the local government district and borough of High Peak. The town population was 22,115 at the 2011 Census. Sights include Poole's Cavern, a limestone cavern, St Ann's Well, fed by a geothermal spring bottled by Buxton Mineral Water Company, and Georgian buildings round John Carr's restored Buxton Crescent, including Buxton Baths. Also notable is Frank Matcham's Buxton Opera House. The Devonshire Campus of the University of Derby occupies historic premises. Buxton is twinned with Oignies, France, and Bad Nauheim, Germany.
The River Manifold is a river in Staffordshire, England. It is a tributary of the River Dove.
The River Wye is a limestone river in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It is 22 miles in length, and is one of the major tributaries of the River Derwent, which flows into the River Trent, and ultimately into the Humber and the North Sea.
Castleton is a village in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England, at the western end of the Hope Valley on the Peakshole Water, a tributary of the River Noe, between the Dark Peak to the north and the White Peak to the south. The population was 642 at the 2011 Census.
Derbyshire Dales is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 71,116. Much of it is in the Peak District, although most of its population lies along the River Derwent.
Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It lies 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Buxton on the B6049, in a wide valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, and is within the District of Derbyshire Dales. The population was 1,820 in 2001, increasing slightly to 1,827 at the 2011 Census, making it the second-largest settlement within the National Park, after Bakewell. Tideswell Dale is a short limestone valley leading south from the village to the River Wye valley.
The history of Derbyshire can be traced back to human settlement since the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago. The county of Derbyshire in England dates back to the 11th century.
Ecton is a hamlet in the Staffordshire Peak District. It is on the Manifold Way, an 8-mile (13 km) walk and cycle path that follows the line of the former Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway. Population details as at the 2011 census can be found under Ilam.
Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often coloured materials into depressions in a base object to form ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. A great range of materials have been used both for the base or matrix and for the inlays inserted into it. Inlay is commonly used in the production of decorative furniture, where pieces of coloured wood, precious metals or even diamonds are inserted into the surface of the carcass using various matrices including clearcoats and varnishes. Lutherie inlays are frequently used as decoration and marking on musical instruments, particularly the smaller strings.
Buxton Museum and Art Gallery focuses its collection on history, geology and archaeology primarily from the Peak District and Derbyshire.
White Watson was an early English geologist, sculptor, stonemason and carver, marble-worker and mineral dealer. In common with many learned people of his time, he was skilled in a number of artistic and scientific areas, becoming a writer, poet, journalist, teacher, botanist and gardener as well as a geologist and mineralogist. He kept extensive diaries and sketchbooks of his observations on geology, fossils and minerals, flora and fauna, and published a small but significant and influential number of geological papers and catalogues. As an artist he was well known locally for his silhouettes, both on paper and as marble inlays.
Hardstone carving is a general term in art history and archaeology for the artistic carving of predominantly semi-precious stones, such as jade, rock crystal, agate, onyx, jasper, serpentinite, or carnelian, and for an object made in this way. Normally the objects are small, and the category overlaps with both jewellery and sculpture. Hardstone carving is sometimes referred to by the Italian term pietre dure; however, pietra dura is the common term used for stone inlay work, which causes some confusion.
William Martin was an English naturalist and palaeontologist who proposed that science should use fossils as evidence to support the study of natural history. Martin published the first colour pictures of fossils and the first scientific study of fossils in English.
The Derbyshire Dome is a geological formation across mid-Derbyshire in England.
p39 Fig 4....A fossil shell. The original a nautilus ....The crocodile said to be found in the limestone of Ashford, appears to be just a large specimen of this or some other Orthoceratite
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