Quarrying at Croft
An Introduction Part 1
The Leicestershire parish of Croft claims possession of one of
the largest granite quarries in Europe, and quarrying has been
carried on thereabouts since the Roman occupation of Britain.
Tradition has it that the parish stone pit at Croft, known as
Clevis, was worked by the Romans and that their engineers used its
granite in constructing the foundations of bridges on Fosse Way.
Moreover, some of the Croft stone used by the Romans at their
settlement at Leicester was reused for church building by the
Saxons in the eighth century after they had embraced Christianity.
This was the case, for example, at Brixworth in Northamptonshire
where Croft stone, used at Leicester, was re-used in the 8th and
9th centuries in the earliest phase of the church's building. It
should not be too readily assumed that quarries used in the Roman
period ceased production with the collapse in Britain of Roman
urban centred society. The place-name Croft, first recorded in 836,
is derived from the Old English cræft, 'craft, machine, or engine',
the craft in question being perhaps that of quarrying.
Croft Hill rises up suddenly nearly two hundred feet from the
Soar flood-plain, and stands out as an isolated landmark almost at
the physical centre of England. Because of its individual shape and
its position it was used in Saxon times as a place of assembly
where matters of importance were discussed and settled.
Such was the case in 836 when Wiglaf, king of Mercia, was joined
by the Archbishop of Canterbury and eleven of his bishops and three
abbots, besides twenty-two laymen of authority and influence to
witness a grant of land by Wiglaf to the monastery of Hanbury in
Worcestershire.
The parish church of Croft is dedicated to St Michael the
Archangel, one of the twenty-one ancient Leicestershire dedications
to the archangel, a fact which makes it third in popularity amongst
the English counties, being only exceeded by Herefordshire and
Middlesex. It is difficult to believe that a conspicuous high place
like Croft Hill did not have pagan connections, and that these were
displaced by a Christian dedication to St Michael, under whose
protection Wiglaf, king of Mercia, and Ceolnoth, archbishop of
Canterbury, met in 836.
With the Norman conquest, conjecture as to Croft's quarrying
tradition moves on to more solid ground. The survival in the parish
church of Norman font and of a Norman window are evidence of a
church of local quarried stone replacing its Anglo Saxon
predecessor which may have been wooden. By 1220 the church was part
of the endowments of Leicester abbey. With the dissolution,
however, of the abbey in 1520, the patronage of the rectory of
Croft was purchased by members of the local gentry to provide a
living for their male relatives. In due course it came into hands
of the Adnutts.
Though these rectors were often absentees, the spiritual needs
of the parish being served by a succession of curates, the material
welfare of the parish seems not to have suffered unduly. A village
school was erected in 1854 and a house for the mistress was built
in 1861. Building in Croft stone, however, was costly and local
brick, which was much cheaper, was the choice.
The Adnutts were gentry and to engage in trade would have been
seen as particularly unbecoming for clerks in holy orders of the
established Church and Justices of the Peace. Thus, the economic
potential of Croft' s abundant reserves of granite and clay passed
them by. The Pratts, who lived at Greystones, now part of the
Aggregate Industries Croft office complex, were less resistant to
trade, and their brick making enterprise used the clay from their
meadows along the banks of the Soar.
In 1865 Samuel Davenport Pochin, 1826-1904, acquired the Croft
brick works. He came from Wigston Magna where his father was a
pillar of the Independent Chapel. Samuel settled in Croft and in
1868 was joined by his elder brother Henry Davis Pochin and
together they established the Croft Stone and Brick Company in
1872.
In 1872 Croft also acquired a new rector, the Revd James
Brookes, MA, 1847-1926, who was resident in the parish. His father
who had purchased both the advowson and lordship of the manor from
the Adnutts, lived in Croft House.
James Brookes built himself a new rectory and extensively
restored the parish church in Croft stone, he and his family
meeting most of the cost. The Brookeses represented rural Tory
Anglicanism at its best, serving the local community as
magistrates, churchwardens, and masters of the hunt. The Pochins,
on the other hand, represented Liberal Nonconformity and its
connection with trade and industry. It was they who transformed
Croft into an industrial village
Henry Pochin whilst retaining an interest in the quarry at Croft
had other interests and did not live in the village. He made his
fortune as a manufacturing chemist and lived stylishly at Bodnant
in the Conwy valley. His daughter Laura married Charles McLaren, a
successful barrister, and had travelled far from the circumstances
of her grandfather William Pochin, who complained in 1832 that he
couldn't 'get a living by all put together, and was losing his
little property fast'.
Croft, its quarry flourishing under Pochin direction, was now
considered to be 'a dark and rapidly increasing village'. This
disturbed Samuel Pochin, and he built a chapel for his employees
and a Sunday school for their children.
On the left you will see a PDF link which Contains data
collected over time referencing information about Quarying at
Croft.