A Pencil drawing of one of the larger slate quarries in the Coniston area.

At Hodge close, on the quiet wooded flank of Holme fell, the enormous slate veins just kept going and going! Before the roof was removed it was said that the quarrymen’s candles resembled a starry night’s sky, such was the grandeur of the workings. The true extent of the quarry is still hidden as tunnels connect here both above and below the water. It seems that there was almost no limit to the men who worked here, as high or as deep, or as hidden or as steep as the slate was they would get to it and bring it to market. To the men, the quarry was as another fell to be climbed or winter to be weathered.