The sounds of slate quarries

It would be ill advised for me to try to say anything new about the quarrying and mining in the South Lakes as so much has been committed to paper and the internet.  All I can offer is my response to what it is left behind: the spoil heaps, the wheel pits, the adits and the levels. It never ceases to amaze me at how busy the landscape must have been during the latter half of the nineteenth century, with levels of mechanisation much lower than that which we would see now. What strikes me most, apart from the scale of it, is how quiet it is now. 

What would have it sounded like? What noises were made? Having lived less than a kilometre from a working slate quarry for years, the noises there were that of heavy diesel machines, the siren warning of an imminent blast and the explosion, felt as much as heard.  Without wishing to sound nostalgic, I can also remember walking past the sheds where slate rivers could be seen and heard clinking and hammering, with a hypnotic rhythm, to produce roofing slates whilst seated on the floor.  I wonder if there is a job for industrial archaeology sound research?