Adding colour: Ryder Point Works In the past, many minerals have been mined and processed in the Peak District, often to make pigments. Lead compounds, all toxic, were used to make red, white and yellow. Zinc oxide was used for white and copper (from Ecton in the western Peak) to make blues and greens. Iron oxides (ochre and 'raddle') mined around Brassington, Cromford and Crich was used for yellows, oranges, browns and reds. Manganese compounds ('wads') from Hopton, Middleton, Cromford and Griffe Grange produced reddish purple, black and rich brown. Sooty types of coal were made into black paint.
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Baryte (barium sulphate), vein calcite and high purity limestone are still mined in Derbyshire and ground very finely to produce specialised fillers, bulking out expensive ingredients, in paints, plastics, concrete and paper. Over two centuries, specialist processing plants were set up at Longcliffe, Cromford, Matlock Bath along the Via Gellia and around Harboro' Rocks. Most still operate. Local minerals are processed by Viaton near Hopton, but iron oxides and mica from China, Turkey and Cyprus are imported. The 'Ryder Point' site began as a 19th Century bone crushing mill; in the 1960s it was producing magnesium metal from the adjacent dolomite rock, then was converted to fluorspar production in the 1970s and now processes a large range of imported minerals.
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