Quarrying is the extraction of rocks and other materials from the Earth's surface. It has been around for a long time - as the agriculture in Britain gradually changed from nomadic to sedentary, people constructed permanent shelters for themselves and their livestock. As time progressed, the demand for rock increased. Collecting suitable rocks that were lying around on the surface could no longer satisfy the demand so ancient Britons started to dig it out of the ground. For your GCSE Geography exams, you need to know what factors affect the location of quarries plus the social, economic and environmental impacts, advantages and disadvantages.
Originally, the rocks in quarries were extracted by a variety of methods, one of which was to bore a hole in the rock and then drive a wedge into the hole. This cracked the rocks and broke pieces off that could then be shaped and used for construction.