were built for the quarry's workmen and their families, in the village of Bardon. In 1898 a new parish church was built, and a stipend provided to pay for a clergymen. The architect of the church, school and houses was Breedon Everard's second son, John Breedon Everard, who had joined the Ellis and Everard firm in 1874. The quarry and its owners offered 'ambitious opportunities for upward social mobility' that were unusual for the time: a quarry labourers on living in one of the cottages in 1881 was a teacher; within the quarry, uneducated labourers rose to positions of high management. Ellis & Everard, was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1988. In 1991 it merged with Evered plc to form Evered Bardon; the name was changed in 1993 to Bardon Group. In 1997 it merged again, this time with Camas (formerly a division of English China Clays), to form Aggregate Industries. In 1999 it entered into a series of major acquisitions in the United States. It was acquired by Holcim, a leading Swiss cement maker, in 2005. The Bardon Hill Quarry serves as the headquarters of Aggregate Industries and is one of the 5 "Super-Quarries" it owns in the UK. In 2009 the company applied to extend the quarry. The existing quarry covers 27 hectares and had a remaining reserve of 30 million tonnes of stone; with a current extraction rate of 3 million tonnes a year, it was expected to be exhausted by 2019. The proposal was to expand the current quarry by 66 hectares (more than trebling the size), allowing the extraction of an additional 132 million tonnes and extending the quarry's lifespan by 40 years. Following the exhaustion of the existing quarry, the company stated it would partially infill the site over a period of around 11 years, and turn it into a nature area. Royal visit In 1840, the then deer park was chosen as a picnic spot for a visit by Queen Adelaide, the Queen Dowager. T. R. Potter describes the Royal scene in The History of Charnwood Forest: Her Majesty, in a dress of elegant simplicity suited to the occasion, supported by Earl Howe, and her Royal sister (the Duchess of Saxe Weimar) by Lord Curzon, ascended the steep with great apparent ease. On arriving at the summit, upwards of an hour was spent in the enjoyment of the wonderful prospect,