Given the name of "Soapeyrock", (also referred to locally as Steatite), and identified as such in the 1720s by naturalist Dr John Woodward (1665–1728), and subsequently by Cornish historian William Borlase (1695–1772), it had first been located from coastal cliff sites in the serpentinite of Kynance Cove, 4 miles SSE, as a mineral with potential economic value.