In 1901, Edgar Purnell Hooley, who was the County Surveyor of Nottinghamshire, made a discovery while near Denby Iron Works in Derbyshire, a barrel of tar that had burst on the road, had been lightly covered with slag from the furnaces at Denby, and the road was remaining dustless and resistant to wear. After experimenting with various mixes, he obtained a patent for his product on April 3^rd 1902, and called his material “Tarmac”. The company he incorporated was  “The Tar Macadam (Purnell Hooley’s Patent) Syndicate Ltd”, and that was registered in June 1903. The company name was changed to Tarmac Ltd in 1905, the rest as they say is history…….

 

The author has worked for Tarmac for 37 years, after starting his career at Old Cliffe Hill Quarry in 1987, while based at Tarmac’s head office at Ettingshall during 2012/13, he noticed that the archive that had been collected over many years, was going unused, and was potentially being disposed of due to a move of head office. After a few calls, and many lunch breaks spent searching through dusty old boxes, thousands of photos and documents were saved. And he promised that he’d use the collection in a book on the history of the company.  

 

After initially penning a book on the history of “Hoveringham Gravels” in 2016, this is his second book, with 1000+ photos, in chronological order, the book recounts the history of the quarrying and road surfacing division, including companies absorbed along the way, including Wimpey, Derbyshire Stone and  Hoveringham. And ones that are within the group after being taken over in 2000, incuding Tilcon, Redland and Steetley.

 

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