Derbyshire's long relationship with mining and quarrying is explored in a new exhibition at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

The exhibition explores how thousands of people living in the Buxton area have throughout time worked as miners or quarry men, getting and transporting stone, and contributing to changing the landscape completely. 

Paintings, photographs and artefacts, which are kept at the Derbyshire County Council-run museum in Terrace Road, will go on show in the exhibition entitled ‘Lead, Lime, Coal’. 

Visitors will be able to step back in time, discover the workers’ memories of the industries and consider what working in these industries was like then, compared with now.

Councillor Barry Lewis, Derbyshire County Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Strategic Leadership, Culture, Tourism and Climate Change, said: “Derbyshire has a proud industrial history that has shaped our landscape and our people, from Roman times to the present day.

“This fascinating exhibition gives us a glimpse into that history – and a voice to the people who made it all happen.”

Photographs commissioned from John Davies in 1985 focusing on the limestone industry around Buxton are seen alongside rare, earlier images showing different machines, tools and ancient customs. 

Recent acquisitions will go on show for the first time including a picture showing quarrying in the 18th century, with men climbing the quarry faces with no evidence of safety gear, by an unknown artist. This was purchased with help from the Art Fund’s New Collecting Award.

Another recent acquisition is a watercolour painting called Topley Pike, 1923, by Karl Hagerdorn (1889 - 1969). It shows Buxton Central Quarry, at the start of the Monsal Trail, one hundred years ago.  This picture has been acquired with help from the National Lottery/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

Slightly more modern is View of a Limestone Works, by Herbert G. Slater (1892 - 1978), possibly the quarry at Stoney Middleton. 

Each picture shows different stone working processes and techniques, from horse and cart through to trains, from lime burning on the edge of the quarry to looming, steaming and smoking kilns. 

Other recent acquisitions have been gifts from local people – an ingot of lead made when the Romans were in Britain, a jacket of an ICI operative from the 1960s, and the Safety Trophy awarded to sections of the ICI Ltd Lime Division in the 1950s. 

This exhibition provides an opportunity for people to see unusual representations of working practices and places, a mixture of backbreaking industry and the beautiful Peak District, different modes of transport from jubilee trucks to eight-wheel lorries and rumbling trains, with the voices of a some of the people who worked here. 

Lead, Lime, Coal is open at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery from Saturday 18 February until Wednesday 7 June. Admission to all parts of the museum is free.

Read more from the Glossop Chronicle

Click here for more of the latest news

Click here to read the latest edition of the paper online

Click here to find out where you can pick up a copy of the paper