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Limestone Traffic on Canals


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There are many tangible remains of the British limestone trade along the length and breadth of the British Canal system. They include quarries, routes of long disused tramways and kilns. Evidence of kilns abound in different parts of the network and these may either near the quarries, or mines, where the limestone was obtained or at a distance where the burning of the limestone produced lime for agricultural or building purposes. Limestone was also carried by boat for use in ironworks as a flux in the iron smelting process or it was refined for production of a host of chemical products.

Whilst the transport of limestone was complex, it is a subject of historical interest. Though the days of canal transport of limestone by canal may have gone, it is still sent by railway wagon to supply the British Chemical Industry.

Limestone deposits are derived from different geological eras and some types were best for fluxing and others best for making cement. It is the agricultural use that was most diverse as kilns were frequently placed in country locations. For those who follow the history of the Montgomery Canal there are excellently preserved examples of kilns placed along this waterway. Those who visit the terminus of the Grand Western Canal will find a large block of kilns there.

The kilns themselves are equally diverse and range from the small chambers, which when viewed from above are shaped like a horseshoe to the large structures that include a number of chambers such as can be seen in the former Earl of Dudley’s kilns at the Black Country Museum site. Then there are more open plan Hoffman Kilns, such as can be seen at Llanymynech on a site near the Shropshire Union Canal.

Taken all together it is a most diverse subject.

The plan reproduced was produced by the Old Union Society to show the kilns that remain at Welford-

 

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Limestone  was also loaded from Harefeild   in a crushed form .A few years back a lot of the buildings used  for crushing & loading still remained 

I don't know when the company stopped  but they where there in 1934 when my grandparents & other family members worked the lime route .

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In the early 1800s the Peak Forest Canal was carrying 1000tons  a DAY  out of Bugsworth, all by horsepower. The demand for limestone/roadstone from the Peak District is today undiminished-one of the several  rail freight  companies operating in the area recently shifted a record  60,000 tons in a week.

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3 hours ago, jeannette smith harrison said:

Limestone  was also loaded from Harefeild   in a crushed form .A few years back a lot of the buildings used  for crushing & loading still remained 

I don't know when the company stopped  but they where there in 1934 when my grandparents & other family members worked the lime route .

There were quite a few Chalk Quarries in Harefield.  I used to go fossil hunting in some of  them when I was a lad, and all the crushing equipment and lime kilns were still operational in the late 1950's. I didn't go to Springwell Quarry is probably the one which your family worked from. I never hunted there, probably because they discouraged it . It had it's own arm off the canal, but has all gone now and the arm has been filled in.

Edited by David Schweizer
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From Narrow Boats at work by Michael Ware.

"A busy scene at the village wharf at Cheddleton, near Leek, on the Cauldon Branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal, about 1905. Just leaving the lock is a boat loaded with limestone which had come from the big Cauldon Low Quarries above Froghall."

Limestone carrying.jpg

Edited by Ray T
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Most northern waterways were built primarily for the carriage of limestone, which was used extensively as a fertiliser, with other uses developing as the economy grew. The L&LC was no exception, and initially they expected to carry far more limestone than coal. By 1790, when the canal came to be built through East Lancashire, the route was moved southwards, out of the limestone area and into the coal measures. The undertakers of the canal realised that coal was becoming more important, not for steam engines, but for industrial processes, so the twenty years from 1770-1790 mark the end of the agricultural revolution and the beginning of the industrial revolution, as shown by the change in the canal's route. There are more details in my book on the canal published last year, which includes a section on limestone traffic.

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