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Jumbles Quarry Massive quantities of stone were required for the construction of the dam to create Stocks Reservoir. Aggregate was required for the mixing of concrete; stone was required for the pitching on the face of the dam, for the tunnel portals and for the construction of the Filter House and Board Room.
Initial cutting at Greenfold Quarry Photograph used by kind permission of Mrs. J. Lawson
Stone was quarried at various times from several outcrops including at Greenfold Quarry, Barn Quarry and Copter Quarry, but the Fylde Water Board was extremely fortunate to discover stone at Jumbles Quarry. The resident engineer, Mr. Harry Cottam, reportedly went off walking whilst having a picnic with his family in the "Greet" Valley and returned highly pleased having found an outcrop of superb quality gritstone on the Water Board's own land at "Jumbles" on Lamb Hill Fell. This stone was hard enough to be extremely resilient, yet soft enough to be easily worked by the masons.
Extracting gritstone from Jumbles Quarry
A 3ft narrow gauge railway line was originally built up the valley between the site of the Stocks dam works and Copter Quarry circa 1922-23, but with the discovery of better stone at Jumbles Quarry, the line was extended during 1924. This was a total distance of approximately 4½ miles between the dam and Jumbles Quarry. Trainloads of workers were brought to the site each morning and taken back to the village at Hollins each evening.
Loading stone onto "M.S.C." railway wagons using steam cranes in Jumbles Quarry
T. Smith & Sons (Rodley) Ltd. steam cranes were used to load the rail wagons with stone which was then transported to the dam site. Aggregate was first quarried at Jumbles in late 1925, whilst large facing stone for the culvert tunnel portals was first quarried in early 1926.
Peckett 0-4-0 side tank locomotive "Fylde" in 1930. Often used to haul stone out of Jumbles Quarry. Photograph used by kind permission of Mrs. J. Lawson
Stone was carried in trains of 8 - 10 wagons hauled by steam locomotive to a stone mason's yard and sheds below the site of the Filter House, where it was cut and dressed by the banker masons. It was then reloaded on to rail wagons for use on the valve tower, the reservoir pitching, culvert portals etc. Many of the masons were reportedly from the Merthyr Tydfil area of South Wales. The 3ft narrow gauge railway line was left in situ between the "Cross of Greet" road and the quarry long after the dam was completed in case stone was required for future extensions to the Stocks Filter House. In the 1980s however, the line was sold off and removed by scrap metal merchants. A short section near the quarry entrance was inaccessible because of erosion by a stream and so remains there to this day.
In addition, the decaying remains of T. Smith & Sons (Rodley) Ltd. steam crane No. A759 are still to be seen on a short length of standard (4ft 8½ inch) gauge rail line within the quarry. 
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