Rosebush quarry is located to the north of Rosebush on the south side of the Preseli Mountains. Beginning as a series of ancient hillside workings, the quarry was developed on four levels in the mid-1870s by Edward Cropper who built the Narberth Road to Maenclochog Railway (NPRN 308782)mainly to serve the workings. Together with the Bellstone quarry (309254), contiguous on the north (but under separate ownership), the workings extended for some 725m along the hillside, some 280m at widest. A mill near the railhead was turbine powered. Wind power is said to have been tried at one time, possibly for pumping. Production declined in the 1880s (36 men were employed in 1898) and final closure came in 1914. The Bellstone quarry operated only intermittently from 1825 until the late 1880s and was never successful.
Although extensive, little remains to be seen of the degraded workings. Near the railway terminus (which became a branch after the extension to Letterston) the loco shed still stands (in 1991) with a few other buildings. Of the Bellstone quarry, excavations and spoil heaps only remain. The quarry company built a row of family homes (instead of barracks), presumably Rosebush Terrace located below the workings in what is now the hamlet of Rosebush.
Sources:
D.Gwyn, Welsh Slate: the Archaeology and History of an Industry (RCAHMW 2015), pp.81, 185 & 199.
Ordnance Survey County series 25-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire XVIII.1, editions of 1889 & 1907.
A.J.Richards, A Gazeteer of the Welsh Slate Industry (1991), pp.216 & 224.
A.J.Richards, The Slate Quarries of Pembrokeshire (1998), pp.78-80; 97-101.
RCAHMW air photos: 955159/45; 965080/44.

David Leighton & J.Wiles, RCAHMW, March 2015