Swithland slate update

I've posted several times about Swithland slate, particularly its use as gravestones, roof tiles, and other artefacts.

On a recent walk from Loughborough, through the Outwoods, to Beaumanor and back to Loughborough, I was reminded about some other uses of Swithland slate that I hadn't mentioned:

House name on Swithland slate sign on Brook Road, Woodhouse Eaves

A slate house number

A slate and stone wall

A slate faced house in Woodhouse

Then, a little while ago I went on another walk, this time from Quorn GCR station, to Swithland Reservoir, and on along to the Mountsorrel and Rothley Heritage Centre, before heading back to Quorn. Since my initial visit to the Heritage Centre, a couple of new exhibition halls had opened up (which you can read about here), and there was some really exciting stuff on Swithland slate.

Firstly, in the main exhibition area, there were numerous information boards about the history of the area around Mountsorrel and Rothley, going from the Bronze Age up to modern times. Two such boards, in the new exhibition area, were specifically related to Swithland slate and covered such things as slate quarrying in Roman times and how the slate had mostly likely been quarried from Groby and their use was more geographically distributed than one might have thought: I'd certainly assumed they were only used locally. 

Some of the uses that the slate was put to included holders for railings, salting troughs (which were used to salt meat), cupboards, and cattle drinking troughs, and some of these were on display in the exhibition, as well as the more well-known use for roofing tiles and gravestones.

Slate meat salting trough

Slate cupboard

Engraving on slate cupboard

Slate animal drinking trough

Slate gravestone

Slate gravestone

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2017). Swithland slate update. Available from: http://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2017/04/swithland-slate-update.html [Accessed 23 April 2017]

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Lynne