File:Junction on Coventry Road, Croft - geograph.org.uk - 229385.jpg

English: Junction on Coventry Road, Croft. Marion's Way leads to Croft Quarry, one of the oldest and biggest quarries in Leicestershire. See http://www.erms.org/Field%20Trips/Croft01.htm for an interesting account of a visit to the quarry and http://www.mindat.org/gallery.php?loc=1588 for pictures of the minerals found there. From the Croft Village web site (http://www.st.michael.croft.btinternet.co.uk/Village.htm ) "The granite quarry is situated at the end of the older part of the village. It is one of the biggest in the UK and can turn out 2 million tonnes of granite per year. Croft has been used as a quarry for the past 2000 years, the evidence is on the Fosse Way , but serious quarrying was started around the mid 19th century. It was primarily used for road making materials and by the turn of the century it was turning out mass volumes of material. The materials were distributed through the quarry’s rail link to the Birmingham-Leicester mainline. After the war the demand for the quarry’s building material increased. In 1959 , the Croft Granite and Brick Company was taken over by English China Clays, it was later passed on to Camas and has become larger ever since. In 1995 planning permission was given to the quarry to take 45 million tonnes of material away. At the current extraction rate of 1.6 / 2 million tonnes a year this will last over 20 years. When this is done the quarry will be doubled in depth, eventually being 160m below sea level at its deepest point."