WILLIAM SMITH AND THE HACKNESS QUARRIES

Abstract

A useful volume containing the whole of the Minutes and copy of correspondence in connexion with the building of the Public Rooms at Hull, one of the larger old buildings which is shortly to be taken over by the Hull Repertory Theatre, is now in the Hull Municipal Museum at Hull. It contains some references to William Smith, the “Father of English Geology,” and to Hackness, which provided the building material for the Scarborough and York Museums, and would have provided the stone for the Hull Public Rooms had not the quarry become useless through landslip of the beds above. In my monograph[*][1] on “William Smith: His Maps and Memoirs,” I referred to the fact that Sir John Johnstone of Hackness employed William Smith as his Land Steward during the period of this correspondence, and it was during Smith’s sojourn in this district that in 1832 he produced the remarkable map of Hackness. The quarry which supplied the stone for the York and Scarborough Museums was, of course, in the well-known Kellaways Rock, and the clay which was above it and caused all the trouble, was the Oxford Clay. With regard to the identity of the quarry mentioned, it will be seen from Plate 17, loc. cit., that there are one or two quarries quite close to Hackness Hall, but probably the one from which this stone was obtained is that referred to as the “Great Quarry” in Smith’s Memoir on Hackness Hill, 1829. The first record in reference to … [1]: #fn-1