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Limekilns at Stockton


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Can anybody remember the offside group of limekilns placed beside the locks which were part of the Blue Lias Limeworks. They were north of the Bridge beside the Blue Lias Public House. The 1904 Ordnance shows the kilns as a group of circles by the canal served by a tramway.

 

Blue Lias 1904.png

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The ones by the Blue Lias bridge were Greaves, Bull & Lakin.

 

If I can find it I have a pre-widening photo of the bottom lock taken off the bridge which shows the kilns.

 

And now I've found my notes the works  up the flight in Ray's photo was Griffin's. I can't find the reference at the moment but the railway siding at Griffin's was used to tranship some of the output of Napton brickworks from boat to rail for onward transport.

Edited by davidg
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On 11/01/2022 at 18:31, ditchcrawler said:

Thanks for sharing this Brian, we are moored on the Kayes arm and I am fascinated by the industrial archeology here. They are still quarrying limestone in the area, it goes by road to the Rugby / Newbold? works, there is also an underground pipeline that I believe sends slurry there too. Nice photo David 👍

Edited by BD3Bill
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Bill, the pipeline was originally put in to bring chalk slurry from a quarry at Tottenhoe to Southam; it came via the works at Rugby to which it also supplied chalk slurry. As you say, quarrying continues at Southam, indeed extraction is now taking place south of the Southam - Rugby road so it may well be that the flow in in the pipeline has been reversed so some of the output of Southam goes to Rugby that way, though judging by the lorry traffic I see daily between Itchington & Princethorpe it can't be much!

 

Tottenhoe was beside the railway line from Leighton Buzzard to Dunstable and there were daily trainloads of chalk and returning empties between there and Southam. The opening of the pipeline meant the end of this traffic and with it the final closure of the railway line between Marton Junction and Weedon east of the bridge by the Blue Lias;

passenger trains between Leamington Spa and Weedon had finished on 15th September 1958. Southam continued to receive coal and send out cement bagged and in bulk until the 1984 miners strike. I can remember rakes of 16t minerals in the exchange sidings beyond the works and they did provide a source of coal for the range for certain arm dwellers at WFBCo.

 

Back to Greaves, Bull & Lakin: when I did some research on the various lime & cement works in the area thirty years ago - no internet back then so things like 25" maps had to be copied at the county records office - it was still possible to explore one of the pits which they worked. Some of the embankment taking the narrow gauge line from the works to the pits and over the LNWR was still there (behind Greaves Cottages it may still be there), some had been levelled. The lower pit, nearer the works, was there and I looked for signs of the tunnel which eventually connected it to the upper pit, adjacent to the Rugby road, but never found it. The upper pit had been landfilled by then, I can still remember it in operation in the early 80s, and subsequently landscaped and grassed over. The household waste disposal site at Stockton is a last remnant of this.

 

I'm away from home at the moment but I should have some photos I took at that time of the the pit and of the remains of the kilns if I can find them.

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36 minutes ago, davidg said:

Bill, the pipeline was originally put in to bring chalk slurry from a quarry at Tottenhoe to Southam; it came via the works at Rugby to which it also supplied chalk slurry. As you say, quarrying continues at Southam, indeed extraction is now taking place south of the Southam - Rugby road so it may well be that the flow in in the pipeline has been reversed so some of the output of Southam goes to Rugby that way, though judging by the lorry traffic I see daily between Itchington & Princethorpe it can't be much!

Hi David, this fascinating stuff, thank you. I did not know that. It makes complete sense to me now you explain as 

I understood that the very high quality of rock quarried here at Southam needed ‘watering down’ in the cement making process . I shall look forward to seeing more photos, top man. 👍

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