The UK still has 6 operational, natural roofing services contractor slate quarries, according to a year 2000 publication by Historic Scotland. These are located in three main slate producing regions of the UK including Wales, Cornwall and the Lake District. The largest of these are in Wales and are operated by Alfred MacAlpine Ltd., in north Wales at Bethesda.
England’s main quarries outside Wales are in Cornwall (primarily the Delabole Quarry) and in the Lake District ;Burlington and Kirkstone quarries). These popular slates have been used for over 300 years.
Also in the Lake District, the Buttermere and Westmorland Green Slate Company Limited is now England’s only underground slate mine (as opposed to an open quarry). Westmorland Green Slate is taken from beneath the hills in eleven miles of tunnels.
Quarrying was taking place here by the 1750s, and from 1833, development expanded with underground mines as well as open quarries. The Buttermere Green Slate Company was established in 1879, but slate mining and quarrying ceased in 1986, then restarted in February of 1997.
British slate quarries readied their peak in the late 1870s with an annual production of half a million tons, 90% of which came from the 670 Welsh quarries operating at the time. By the year 2000, nine Welsh quarries were producing 40.001 tons annually.
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Despite the UK’s long history of slate production and slate roofing, today natural slate accounts for only 7% of total roofing products used there, which includes locally quarried material and recycled slates as well as imported slates. Concrete tiles now make up the bulk of the rooting at 72%, artificial slates make up 14%, and clay tiles make up 6%. The balance (1%) is made up of metal roofing or other shingles.
