At their peak the three quarries employed around 110 men. Rock men drilled the holes into the face of the granite to set explosives which would bring down hundreds of tons of rock. 'Pop drillers' and 'breakers' used hammers and gun powder to break the granite into more manageable sizes. Hundreds of tons of granite were quarried in the valley on a daily basis and ships regularly moored up alongside one of three jetties in the bay to be loaded with the setts and crushed stone.