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Although many believe this stone to have been extracted by the Romans, the first recorded evidence of quarrying, possibly using bell pits, in this area is near Burton, Staffordshire at Hanbury and Tutbury during the 12th -13th centuries. A thriving industry in alabaster carving followed declining as late as the the mid 17th century. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that large scale underground mining began. There was a brief revival in the Victorian era for pulpits, fonts, reredoses and recumbant effigies but mainly it was extracted for the plaster and cement industry (Clifton-Taylor & Ireson 1994: 50).
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