Ashford Black Marble

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.

In 2009 huge blocks of unworked Ashford Black Marble were unearthed during excavation work near to the Seven Stars public house in Derby.

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.

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 fluorspar from Crich,[6] whilst "Birds-Eye" rock had a design made from the fossils that it contained.

[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.