Picture supplied by: Wiltshire Council, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, from Andrews' and Dury's Map of Wiltshire, 1810

History of Chicksgrove Quarry

There is evidence to suggest that quarrying has been taking place around Tisbury in the Nadder Valley since Roman Times and it is believed that much of the stone used for Salisbury Cathedral came from Tisbury, rather than Chilmark as once thought.

Records show that quarrying in the area reached a peak around 1846 when there were forty stone quarries recorded in the valley.  Prior to the arrival of the railway in Tisbury the stone was primarily used for local building work but for the latter part of the 19th century a stone yard was in operation at Tisbury Station. 

The modern site of Chicksgrove Quarry was opened in 1968 by Victor Selfe.  Having bought the land and arranged the necessary planning permission he began blasting the bedrock for aggregate to be used in the construction of the M3 motorway.  In the early seventies the family sold the quarry to Cameron Mechanicals and emigrated to Australia.

The quarry later passed into the ownership of RMC who continued to extract aggregate, a major project which they supplied was the construction of the Churchfields Industrial Estate in Salisbury.  RMC ceased working the quarry when economic and transport changes made it unviable and the quarry stood redundant.

In 1986 a civil engineer, Ron Collins, purchased and re-opened the site as a dimensional stone quarry.  The primary objective was to supply the extensive restoration works on Salisbury Cathedral but the business soon began to grow, taking on additional projects and increasing in size.

After over 20 years the business remains within the Collins family, now owned by Will Collins and continues to thrive despite periods of challenging economic conditions.  We have now been granted planning permission for an extension which will allow us to continue extraction for many years to come. We also now own a mine at Chilmark and are intending to relocate some of the processing to a new yard adjacent to the mine in the upcoming months, allowing expansion to meet the growing national demand for Chilmark Stone.