(1912-1979)
Alfred Deller was born in Margate and sang in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral from 1940 to 1947. He is described as a counter-tenor singer of unique quality and he went on to found the Stour Music Festival in 1963.
The wall tablet in the south choir aisle is the work of David Kindersley of Cambridge. It is made of blue-grey Delabole Slate, a good quality slate of Upper Devonian age from North Cornwall. The slate was once a mudstone that was deposited on a sea bed some 360 million years ago. The stone later underwent metamorphism and the numerous platey mica minerals were squeezed into parallel bands to form a well-defined cleavage. Consequently the rock can easily be split into thin slices.
Slate has been produced from a number of quarries in the vicinity of Delabole for over 1,000 years. More recently the large Delabole Quarry has incorporated several smaller workings and the open pit is now over 130 metres deep. Quarrying continues to this day where slate is split and dressed on site. Finished stone products from the quarry include roofing tiles, flooring stone and memorial headstones.
