Garage Finds

When you live in an area like Coniston with its long mining and quarrying history it is perhaps not surprising that you occasionally stumble on small caches of long ago hewn slate, squirrelled away for any number of reasons and more or less forgotten about. For us in this industry unearthing these finds is like finding Blackbeard’s treasure, the thrill of getting your hands on slate from long closed quarries and mines, slate that was hewn years ago from seams that are now gone is a rare feeling, those long ceased quarries and mines are known to us, we see them when we walk the mountains their spoil tips slowly being reclaimed by nature but still marking them out for miles around, Coniston old man, our mountain is riddled with them, old quarries, old mines, rive tips mine spoil tails, all dotted around the mountain, all with a story to tell and quite literally Coppermine’s valley wouldn’t be Coppermine’s valley were it not for the copper mines.

Recently we’ve found two garage caches and we couldn’t be more excited (note to self… must get a life!) good quality slate in various sizes from local quarries that are no longer producing, it helps us to reach back into our own roots and enables us to make things that link us ever stronger to our place history and our craft, and when we make beautiful commissioned pieces with these treasured pieces, the hardest part is letting it go.