Located in an area close to central Manchester which was formerly an area of heavy industry, Collyhurst is now a rather dilapidated area in need of renewal. This regeneration has been partly undertaken with the development of the Irk Valley Project which has created an area of urban green space replete with sculpture and sandstone entrance marker. It is in a segment of this park land, with rough grassland and birch and alder fringes, that the remains of the old Collyhurst Quarry are found along with the old cobbled road. The red stone extracted from this site was a fine to medium grained sedimentary sandstone rock of Early Permian age, making it about 280 million years old. Collyhurst sandstone was created from desert sands blown into dune formations during this period when the area which now constitutes the British Isles occupied a location within the low latitude desert belts to the north of the equator. The rock is not very resistant to the ravages of weathering and erosion and disintegrates relatively quickly.