Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks, King Sterndale, Derbyshire

Conservation Management Plant (Draft for Consultation)

Oxford Archaeology North December 2013

Express Park Buxton Ltd

Issue No: 2013-14/1469 OA North Job No: L10683 NGR: 408030 372315 Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks, King Sterndale, Derbyshire: Conservation Management Plan (Draft) 1

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4

1. INTRODUCTION 5 1.1 The site and its location 5 1.2 Ownership, present uses and status 7 1.3 Purpose of the Conservation Management Plan 7 1.4 Site parameters 8 1.5 Present condition and vulnerabilities 8

2. UNDERSTANDING THE SITE 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 Location and context 11 2.3 The site and its components: summary 12 2.4 Geological context 14 2.5 Landscape assessment 14 2.6 Ecology 15 2.7 Climate change 15 2.8 Current issues 15 2.9 Historical and archaeological background 16 2.10 General description and analysis of sites and structures 22 2.11 Alterations during the site’s operational life 22 2.12 Values and detractors 23 2.13 Present and future management 24 2.14 Safety issues 25

3. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE 26 3.1 Criteria 26 3.2 Defining significance 26 3.3 Criteria 28 3.4 Archaeological studies 28 3.5 Levels of significance 28 3.6 Site components 31 3.7 Summary statement of significance 69 3.8 Detractors 70 3.9 Rarity value 71 3.10 Key values 74

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3.11 The significance of Cowdale as an asset to different groups 75 3.12 Concluding comment 76

4. ISSUES 77 4.1 Introduction 77 4.2 Understanding 77 4.3 General issues 78 4.4 Access issues 78 4.5 Nature conservation issues 79 4.6 Sustainable development issues 79 4.7 Conservation or ‘greening’ issues 80 4.8 Vulnerability of site components 80 4.9 Potential uses of the site 82

5. POLICIES 83 5.1 Introduction 83 5.2 Initial Option 83 5.3 Management 84 5.4 Policy 1: Understanding of the site 84 5.5 Policy 2: Archaeology 85 5.6 Policy 3: Ecology 85 5.7 Policies 4 – 8: Conservation and repair 86 5.7 Policy 9: Statutory considerations 87 5.8 Policy 10: Implementation 87

6. IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW 88 7. REFERENCES 89 APPENDIX 1: Scheduled Monument Description 92 APPENDIX 2: Cowdale Quarry photographic index 96 APPENDIX 3: List of quarries in the Buxton and Dove Holes area 100 APPENDIX 4: East Buxton and Miller’s Dale Limeworks 102 ILLUSTRATIONS 114

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List of Plates Plate 1: Recent aerial view across Cowdale Quarry 5 Plate 2: The remains of the rail loading platform beneath the kiln battery 6 Plate 3: An open-roofed structure to the rear of the Gatehouse/Office 9 Plate 4: View across the Buxton Central Quarry in the mid-twentieth century 11 Plate 5: View across the quarry floor looking towards the eastern quarry face 12 Plate 6: Possible Weigh House (Site Component T) 13 Plate 7: Aerial view across Cowdale and Ashwood Dale limeworks in 1927 14 Plate 8: Extract from the Ordnance Survey 25”: 1 mile map of 1898 16 Plate 9: Extract from the Ordnance Survey 25”: 1 mile map of 1921-2 17 Plate 10: View of the gateway entrance to the quarry 31 Plate 11: View of the Gatehouse/Office 32 Plate 12: Demolished remains of the Power House 33 Plate 13: View of the Lower Cabin 34 Plate 14: View of the Upper Cabin 35 Plate 15: Niche to the east of the Lower Cabin 36 Plate 16: The western draw arch in the kiln bank 38 Plate 17: The loading platform, and later concrete buttresses 38 Plate 18: Bank of chutes 41 Plate 19: Twin rail bed loading gantry 41 Plate 20: Rock-cut shelter 42 Plate 21: The remains of the Lineside Cabin 43 Plate 22: The remains of the gateway to the sidings 44 Plate 23: Remains of the Drum House for the Lower Incline Plane 46 Plate 24: Rock-cut shelter 47 Plate 25: Remains of a possible weigh house on the tramway from the central quarry 48 Plate 26: Remains of a rectangular stone-built building with concrete roof at north end 49 Plate 27: Demolished stone-built structure with concrete roof 50 Plate 28: Possible weigh house 51 Plate 29: Remains of the Haulage House for the Upper Incline Plane 52 Plate 30: Terminus of Upper Incline Plane 53 Plate 31: The Powder House 54 Plate 32: Aerial photograph across the quarry in c 1932 55 Plate 33: Remains of the standard gauge rail bed to the east of the kiln battery 56 Plate 34: Terminus of the Lower Incline Plane 57 Plate 35: View along Tramway IM4 58 Plate 36: View down the Upper Incline Plane towards the Incline Bridge (IM11) 59 Plate 37: Tramway revetment wall 60 Plate 38: Tramway IM7 revetment wall 61 Plate 39: Access path 62 Plate 40: Railway bridge abutment 63 Plate 41: Incline Plane IM15 64 Plate 42: Pathway to the Powder House 65 Plate 43: View of the western quarry 66 Plate 44: View of the western spoil heap 68 Plate 45: One of the draw arches at Miller’s Dale Limeworks 72 Plate 46: Miller’s Dale Quarry 72 Plate 47: The East Buxton Limeworks 73

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) would like to thank Roger Peters of Geoffrey Barnett Associates for commissioning and supporting the project on behalf of Express Park Buxton Ltd. Thanks are also expressed to Simon Mortimer of CgMs Consulting. OA North is especially grateful to Dr David Johnson, who was responsible for the interpretation of the historic quarrying features that survive at Cowdale, and for identifying their relative significance.

The entire Conservation Management Plant was compiled largely by Dr David Johnson, with contributions from Ian Miller, who was also responsible for project management. The illustrations were produced by Mark Tidmarsh.

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Site and its Location

1.1.1 Cowdale Quarry is a disused industrial site with late nineteenth/early twentieth- century origins that lies in the civil parish of King Sterndale, within High Peak District, 2.5km south-east of the Buxton in Derbyshire (Fig. 1). The site covers approximately 20 hectares, and is located on the south side of the River Wye above the narrow but artificially-widened Ashwood Dale gorge (centred on NGR 408030 372315).

1.1.2 The limeworks complex is bounded by the river and adjacent A6 to the north, and the quarry to the south (Plate 1); the main components of the limeworks were built into or against a vertical quarried face c 20m high, with the top of the kiln battery and crushing plant level with the quarry floor, and the base of both components at the bottom of the rock face on a narrow linear platform. The quarry extends c 750m east/west, by a maximum of 340m north/south, whilst the limeworks complex extends c 550m east-west (Fig 2).

Plate 1: Recent aerial view across Cowdale Quarry

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1.1.3 The entire quarry and limeworks form an historic industrial complex of considerable archaeological importance, which is reflected in the statutory designation of the core elements as a Scheduled Monument (Monument No 1546192; Appendix 1 ). Cowdale is also listed as site numbers 2894 and 2895 on the Derbyshire County Historic Environment Record (HER).

1.1.4 The site has been closed and disused commercially since the mid-1950s, and most of the plant was removed for salvage after closure, but it has retained an impressive number and range of buildings and structures of archaeological, historical and technological interest. Notable amongst these are the stone-built and concrete- buttressed lime kiln battery, and the concrete-built loading hoppers and gantries for the crushing plant (Plate 2). The kilns are of especial importance, as they are potentially the last traditional vertical stone-built lime kilns to be used in Derbyshire.

Plate 2: The remains of the rail loading platform beneath the kiln battery

1.1.5 Since closure, the entire site has regenerated naturally, although the quarry floor was given a veneer of topsoil to create grassland for animal husbandry. The lower platform, the quarried face within the limeworks area, and the slopes north of the quarry, have reverted to a mix of dense deciduous woodland and scrub formed from mostly native, but often invasive and vigorous, ground cover and lower-storey species.

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1.2 Ownership, Present Uses and Status

1.2.1 The entire quarry and limeworks (referred to hereafter as the Site), comprising the quarries and processing complexes, is owned by Express Park Buxton Ltd, with no areas or elements sub-let. The main quarry floor is used for livestock grazing by a local farmer, but no formal tenancy or rental agreement is in place; it is an informal arrangement between the owner and the farmer concerned. In theory, the Site is not accessible to the general public, and a sign at the gateway on the A6 bears the (defaced) message ‘Climbing in the quarry is prohibited’, though there is clear evidence of trespass in the lower sections of the site. An informal walking route has been marked out on the ground using orange plastic way-markers, running up the lower incline plane, then along the top of the kilns and crushing hoppers, before dropping down a path to the railway siding east of the loading gantries, to return along the rail siding. The upper level, between the lower slopes and the main quarry floor/kiln top has a barrier in the form of a locked, double galvanised field gate and post-and-wire stock fencing.

1.2.2 The buildings that represent the surviving elements of the processing complex were afforded statutory designation as a Scheduled Monument in 2011 (Monument No 1546192), described as ‘Cowdale quarry, limestone extraction and processing site’. The scheduled area includes the entire lower platform from the western road entrance (component A) to the kiln and crushing plant, the incline planes, and much of the eastern spoil heap ( Appendix 1 ). Scheduling protects standing, buried and earthwork elements of the Site. The designated area was accorded ‘Priority category A’ status meaning it is under threat of ‘immediate ... further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric’. The designated area excludes the quarry and the western and central spoil heaps.

1.3 Purpose of the Conservation Management Plan

1.3.1 A Conservation Management Plan (hereafter CMP) sets out the significance of a given site, here Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks (the Site), and indicates how its significance could be maintained and sustained in any future use or management of the Site. It considers understanding of the Site, assesses the its overall significance, identifies real or potential conservation issues and conflicts, and suggests possible future policies that would help retain the Site’s significance and integrity. It provides a single approach to understanding and managing the heritage significance of the Site, allowing interested parties to make a balanced assessment of how best to preserve and conserve it for the future.

1.3.2 CMPs have been drawn up for a wide variety of sites across the country, and are an accepted tool that can help inform the future preservation, management and enhancement of heritage sites. They form the first step in preparing management proposals, repair or restoration schemes, potential new developments within sites with acknowledged heritage assets, and long-term maintenance programmes. Such Plans are required by funding organisations, such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and by English Heritage for its decision-making process concerning scheduled sites.

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1.4 Site Parameters

1.4.1 This CMP refers to the whole Cowdale industrial complex, comprising three discrete quarries, the limeworks, and all associated infrastructure components, all of which are in the ownership of Express Park Buxton Ltd. The northern boundary of the complex is the vertical drop to the River Wye; all other boundaries are defined by the face of the main quarry between the hamlets of Staden to the west and Cowdale to the east, and by stock fencing on top of the eastern spoil heaps. It includes the eastern section of standard gauge rail siding running to the east from the flight of steps (IM13), close to the Rock-cut Shelter (H), to the junction with the mainline. The area under review includes the grazing land within the main quarry, but not that to the south of the quarry.

1.4.2 Cowdale does not lie within an area designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) or Nature Reserve. The Wye Valley SSSI and Special Area of Conservation (SAC), the Topley Pike and Deep Dale SSSI, SAC and Nature Reserve, the Cunning Dale and Woo Dale arms of designated SSSI areas all lie to the north and east of the complex.

1.5 Present Condition and Vulnerabilities

1.5.1 The Scheduled Monument is seriously overgrown with dense vegetation colonising the entire limeworks complex, original quarries, lower incline plane and steep slopes between the spoil heaps and the river. The quarry floor is grazed pasture, seeded on topsoil brought in after abandonment of the site.

1.5.2 Few of the standing structures can be described as in good or sound condition, and even those which appear structurally sound, such as the Gatehouse/Office (A) and Lower Cabin (C) have been subjected to graffiti and misuse by unauthorised persons. Most of the buildings, if not demolished on abandonment of the complex, have deteriorated over the ensuing decades and, in some cases, have partially collapsed. The Lime Kiln Bank (F) and Crushing Plant Loading Gantries (G) are showing signs of fatigue in stonework and concrete and steel sections, and are both under threat of failure within the medium to long term. A recent structural assessment highlighted the ‘poor’ condition of many of the structures, with the loading hoppers and gantries being in a particularly unsatisfactory state (Jubb 2010).

1.5.3 The poor condition of the Scheduled Monument as a whole is reflected in its inclusion on the current Heritage At Risk Register. This notes a declining trend of ‘extensive significant problems’, describing the condition of some of the standing buildings as ‘very bad’, with the principal vulnerability being to deterioration through lack of management ( http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/har-2012-registers/em- HAR-register-2012 ). There is no visible evidence of organised attempts to control rank vegetation growth, of tree, shrub or ground-cover species across the Site. Similarly, there is no visible indication of any attempts to maintain the surface of the rail siding or any of the incline planes: indeed, there has been dumping of loose material at various points along the siding bed at some point.

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1.5.4 There has been no buildings maintenance programme for the limeworks complex, and no visible sign of any woodland management. Until firm decisions are made concerning the Site’s long-term future, all structures and site components will remain at risk. The current, and previous, concerns are uncontrolled and sometimes rampant vegetation growth and incursion, lack of maintenance, absence of structural repairs to standing Site components, occasional inappropriate uses by certain members of the public, and vandalism in the form of graffiti.

1.5.5 There are clear indications of a conflict between the archaeology of standing structures and aspects of site infrastructure on the one hand, and wildlife on the other. The Kiln Battery, Loading Gantries, Lower Cabin and Gatehouse/Office in particular, have long been colonised by a wide variety of plant species, some of which are invasive and vigorous (such as brambles, butterbur, bracken and sycamore). Root penetration into stone and concrete structures impacts detrimentally on the stability of such structures, leading to structural failure, and clearly has a negative impact on the visual appeal of the Site hiding, as it does, many of the standing structures (Plate 3).

Plate 3: An open-roofed structure to the rear of the Gatehouse/Office

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2. UNDERSTANDING THE SITE

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 The Cowdale Limeworks and Quarry was opened by the New Buxton Lime Company at the very end of the nineteenth century. The site chosen lay to the south-east of Buxton, and immediately to the south of the Ashwood Dale limestone quarry, which had been commercially active since c 1820. One of the main advantages of this location was access to the Midland Railway line to Manchester, which was opened through Ashwood Dale in 1864, providing a transport artery for several quarries in the area (Boden 1960).

2.1.2 Cowdale Quarry became part of the Buxton Lime Firms (BFL) in 1908, which was established in the 1890s as an amalgamation of 17 lime quarries. By 1918, however, the leading chemical-manufacturing firm of Brunner Mond was so heavily dependent on the limestone from BLF that they bought a controlling interest in the business. This was converted to total ownership in 1926, and all their businesses were merged with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Ltd. The lime works continued in operation until its closure in the mid-twentieth century, although the quarry itself ceased active working in 1948, and was used subsequently for the storage of stone until the site’s closure in 1955.

2.1.3 In common with many other limestone quarries, Cowdale has only fragmentary surviving documentation, with very little having been located for its earliest days. Incorporation into larger business units through its working life may be one reason why some material has not survived. Added to this is the general lack of interest in the country’s industrial past prior to the late 1960s and 1970s. The Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock has two large archives pertaining to BLF, although these are only partly catalogued and have not been interrogated fully for the purposes of the present study. Much is generalised data relating to BLF not broken down into its constituent quarry members. Items that have been located and examined include company records, accounts, lease agreements and plans, output data, and legal matters. Several contemporary photographs have also been sourced.

2.1.4 The development of the Site can be traced reasonable well from the sequence of available historical mapping, spanning the period from the late nineteenth century to the closure of the quarry in 1955. However, gaps in the mapping sequence between the 1921-22, 1938 and 1955 editions cover long spells of the quarry and limeworks operational life, which inhibit a full understanding of ongoing developments.

2.1.5 Interpretation of the Site for this CMP has relied heavily on detailed examination on the ground, carried out in October and November 2013. Plotting of individual features, careful measurements using tape measures and a Leica Disto laser distance meter, and detailed notes taking in the field, with digital photography, were methods employed. To enable a comparison with other limestone quarries, both defunct and operational, in the Buxton and Peak Forest areas, every known commercial quarry was visited, either by going to the quarry offices or by observation from the nearest road or public footpath. In total, 31 other quarries were visited.

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2.2 Location and Context

2.2.1 Limestone quarrying and lime burning has been a significant industry for centuries across the Derbyshire High Peak, wherever Carboniferous Limestone strata are the dominant bedrock (Barnatt and Dickson 2004; Boden 1960). Early workings are generally associated on the ground with the ‘lumps and bumps’ or ‘hills and hollows’ that typify shallow and long since grassed-over stone-getting delfs, and with shallow and small bowl-shaped depressions that indicate the position of former clamp kilns. Larger commercially-operated workings, that can correctly be termed quarries rather than delfs, were generally developed through the late eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, with an incremental increase in size (depth and surface area) from the eighteenth to the later twentieth centuries. In addition, there are hundreds of small workings formerly associated with the small field kilns that are peppered across most limestone landscapes across the High Peak.

2.2.2 Larger quarries invariably developed in response to ease of access, especially to railways, and as a result of landowners being willing to lease or sell land for quarrying. Valley side locations, such as Cowdale, were favoured with kilns being built with their tops at or below the level of the quarry floor for ease of loading stone into the kiln bowl; and with the draw arches at the foot to permit direct loading of burnt lime into rail wagons or tramway carts (Plate 4). Some limestone quarries, including Cowdale, were opened up in the final quarter of the nineteenth century in response to increased demands for burnt lime from urban and industrial end-users.

Plate 4: View across the Buxton Central Quarry in the mid-twentieth century

2.2.3 In the decades after Cowdale, there have been many marked changes in values with a greater appreciation of, and desire to protect and preserve, the natural environment as well as the country’s industrial heritage; limestone extraction and lime burning were integral and essential elements of the latter.

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2.3 The Site and its Components: Summary

2.3.1 Intensive exploitation over a period of at least 60 years has created an extensive and level quarry floor at Cowdale, now visible as a single bench, surrounded on all sides by a continuous vertical working face, c 300m long and averaging 25m in height. The main quarry floor is separated physically from the limeworks and crushing plant complexes by a series of 14-20m-high spoil heaps of varying size and plan form (Plate 5). These are, in part, being slowly colonised by a range of deciduous tree and shrub species.

Plate 5: View across the quarry floor looking towards the eastern quarry face and spoil heaps

2.3.2 The steep slopes between the spoil heaps and the rail siding, and the rail siding platform itself, have become thickly wooded since abandonment. This also applies to the discrete quarry holes at the eastern and western ends of the site (AQ and BQ), south and above the level of the now-demolished Power House (B) and Rock-cut Shelter (H) respectively (Fig 2), which is where quarrying at Cowdale was first concentrated, apart from the quarrying back of the natural valley side to make sufficient space for the rail sidings, loading gantries and kiln battery.

2.3.3 The earliest phase of quarrying in the western part of the Site (AQ) was cut back into the pre-existing valley side to create an arc-shaped hole c 25m high. Much of the floor of this quarry is masked by spoil that was clearly tipped in from above down the backwall from the earliest workings of the main (and later) quarry to the south. The scale of later operations makes it difficult to deconstruct how stone from this quarry was transferred to the kilns, but a small section of dry stone buttressing and a length of Jubilee rail sticking out of the spoil may represent the point where stone was tipped, probably from wheelbarrows, on to carts to be hauled up the Lower Incline (IM 3) to the kiln top. It is obvious on the ground that this quarry hole had gone out of use when the main quarry was opened up, partly because of the amount of spoil, but also because it is too near to the Power House to have been coeval.

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2.3.4 The early quarry in the eastern part of the Site (BQ) was probably opened up more or less at the same time as the western hole. This has also been largely infilled from above with spoil tipped over the now-buried working face as the central part of the main quarry was developed, and before the large free-standing spoil heaps were begun. The close proximity of this quarry to the crushing plant rules out any working of this quarry during the crushing plant’s life.

2.3.5 The battery of vertical kilns and the concrete loading hopper and gantries serving the crushing plant dominate the northern section of the site, along with the rail siding and two main incline plane beds (Fig 3). As an example of a massive kiln battery utilising traditional (and, by the time it was built, outdated) technology, Cowdale is a rare survivor nationally; as an example of massive structures utilising concrete buttressing it is even rarer, and it is probable that the kiln battery is unique in England in its final detailed form, though there are similarities with the battery in East Buxton Quarry at Miller’s Dale (see Section 3.9.5 ).

2.3.6 A range of ancillary buildings, including workers’ cabins, blast shelters, offices, drum houses, weigh houses (Plate 6), powder house and stores, has survived, generally in a poor and unstable condition. The track beds of three incline planes (IM 3, 5 and 15) have survived intact, as have the standard-gauge rail siding track bed (IM 2), and a high-level horizontal tramway track bed (IM 4). As access was obviously required from the quarry to the crushing plant and kiln battery, spoil heaps were designed so as to leave access points along which tramways were laid: three such tramways were operated (IM 6, 7 and 8). The alignment of these tramways can still be clearly seen and followed (Fig 3).

2.3.7 Details of all Site components are described in Section 3.3 .

Plate 6: Possible Weigh House (Site Component T)

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2.4 Geological Context

2.4.1 All rock strata in Ashwood Dale and Cowdale are of Carboniferous age within the Peak Limestone Group (www.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html). The valley bottom has been cut down, by natural processes of erosion, into the 402m-thick Woo Dale Limestone Formation which consists largely of pure limestones surrounding dolomitic limestone beds. These are overlain by younger beds of the pale grey Bee Low Limestone Formation, which consist of thick-bedded limestones of pure calcium carbonate, whose thickness varies from 68m to 213m, and whose characteristics are broadly uniform. This is what was exploited within Cowdale Quarry.

2.4.2 The details of the geology in Cowdale are thought to be no different from what is to be seen in several other limestone quarries in the Buxton area (Gunn 2010). Cowdale does not stand out in terms of its geological significance.

2.5 Landscape Assessment

2.5.1 The landscape character and setting of Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks presents a dichotomy between past industrial activity and post-abandonment natural regeneration. Historic photographs vividly capture the Site as a hive of large-scale industrial activity, characterised by a large scar in the side of the natural gorge, spoil heaps, dust and smoke, in an environment denuded of vegetation (Plate 7). However, with the exception of the main quarry, this historic character of the Site is to a large degree masked by the present ground cover and woodland growth, which provide the site with a strong sense of rural seclusion and wildness.

Plate 7: Aerial view across Cowdale and Ashwood Dale limeworks in 1927

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2.5.2 The Site is clearly a complex landscape visually, and one that can engender contrasting ideas of sense of place. In its present state, it is not easy for the casual visitor to interpret and make sense of the Site, but its component parts could readily be made to fit together to enable meaningful understanding of how it all operated. The clearance of the vegetation from the lower limeworks would certainly improve the historic setting of this part of the monument, and ultimately enhance the group value of the various components by improving their visibility, thus enabling the flow of former industrial processes to be appreciated more readily.

2.5.3 The earliest quarry holes (A and B) are difficult to access presently. Facilitating access to the eastern quarry hole, perhaps via the repair and upgrade of the original path (IM 13), coupled with selective tree felling, long-range views across and beyond the gorge could be opened up. The long linear rail siding, with its series of industrial structures alongside, provides a strong sense of historic industrial technology and methodology. The upper level, on the kiln and crushing plant top, and on the eastern spoil heaps, also provides long-range views, enabling a deep appreciation of the grandeur and scale of operations of the site and the efforts of its operatives. Similarly, the opening up of views to the north would allow visitors to appreciate contrasting methods of quarrying by comparing what is to be seen within Cowdale with the still-working and ‘raw’ Ashwood Dale Quarry across the valley.

2.6 Ecology

2.6.1 The Cowdale complex does not have any form of statutory ecological designation or protection, and has not been subject to any formalised wildlife management or monitoring regime. The area south of the River Wye around Cowdale and Staden are excluded from High Peak Borough’s map of Landscape Character Areas for the White Peak (www.landscapecharacter.org.uk/pdfs/lca_casestudy7).

2.7 Climate Change

2.7.1 Damaging climate change is generally recognised as a major issue of the twenty-first century, and historical structures are not immune from its likely impacts. Changes in temperature patterns and increased frequency of autumnal and winter storms and snowfall will all have a negative effect on historical sites and structures. Frost damage, in particular, will have a negative impact on the structural integrity of the stone-built and concrete structures, as already evident on the west face and in the concrete buttressing of the kiln battery and in the loading hoppers. Likely impacts may include damage to standing structures from wind-blown trees and, given the current density of tree growth across the limeworks and crushing plant complexes, major site components will be detrimentally affected. Climate change in the form of increased precipitation levels, more extreme winters and changing seasonal patterns could well lead to changes in the vegetation and wildlife communities of the Site.

2.8 Current Issues

2.8.1 The presence of graffiti and discarded rubbish, including beer cans and food waste, and remains of camp fires within the Gatehouse, suggests that the site attracts unauthorised visitors, some of which have little regard for the significance of the Site.

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2.9 Historical and Archaeological Background

2.9.1 Previous studies of the site have stated that the kilns at Cowdale were erected in the 1870s (MPP 1997), although primary evidence to confirm this is lacking. Indeed, trade directories for Derbyshire list up to 12 discrete lime burning concerns in the Dove Holes area: three at Miller’s Dale; one at Grinlow; and one at Harpur Hill in 1881 and 1887. The edition for 1899 adds Hindlow, Ashwood Dale and Buxton Central, but Cowdale was not entered in any of these lists. (Kelly 1881, 1887 and 1899). The Ordnance Survey map of 1898, moreover, provides no indication of any quarrying having occurred on the Site, whilst the Ashwood Dale Works immediately to the north is shown in some detail (Plate 8).

Plate 8: Extract from the Ordnance Survey 25”: 1 mile map of 1898, showing the boundary of the Site prior to any apparent quarrying activity

2.9.2 An indenture of lease was signed on 2 November 1900 but effective from 25 December 1899, between the landowners (FS Goodwin of Bakewell, Gent, JT Ashton of Teddington in Middlesex, surgeon, and Mrs S Ashton of Taddington Hall near Miller’s Dale, his wife) and the ‘New Lime Company Ltd Buxton’ (DRO. D504/167/16/2). The lease, valid for 29 years, and renewable for a further 30, concerned ‘all the quarries and beds of limestone’ shown on the plan attached to the lease, and gave the Company the rights to get and burn limestone, to stockpile limestone and waste, to ‘make lay down and place ... such railways and tramways with proper sidings ...’, to build up to six cottages for workers, to erect whatever sheds and buildings were deemed necessary and, crucially, to ‘erect and set up on some suitable part ... such and so many limekilns’ as required.

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2.9.3 This lease raises several issues. It specifically stated ‘all the quarries’, which suggests that quarrying had been carried out before 1899, and it is possible that these were the old quarry holes (Figure 2, A and B). However, the plan just shows two parcels of ground that are devoid of any features. What is clear from the lease, however, is that the kiln battery was not in existence prior to 1900. Carrington presumably wanted to take on (two?) existing small quarries to develop his scheme of establishing a new limeworks. However, the area covered by the lease was field numbers 95, 111, 113 and 114 on the 1921-22 Ordnance Survey map (Plate 9). It excludes the entire limeworks and crushing plant area and the two oldest quarry holes; all it depicts north of these former fields is a narrow strip of woodland along the A6 road. (Permission to reproduce the plan in this report was refused).

Plate 9: Extract from the Ordnance Survey 25”: 1 mile map of 1921-2

2.9.4 The company was bound by the agreement to pay a half-yearly rent of £50, with a royalty of 2d per ton of stone quarried, and with a surface rent of £2 per acre or part thereof per half year. They were also required to make their production statistics and accounts freely available to the lessors to examine. The company was also to erect a fence 4 feet 6 inches high around the site perimeter, elements of which survive.

2.9.5 In 1891, 13 companies merged their 17 limestone quarries into a amalgam called the Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited (BLF), operating a total of 89 lime kilns and 21 crushing plants across their combined quarries (TNA.BT31/31260/35063; BT31/4184/27058/4)). Another nine sites had been added to the portfolio by 1915, including Carrington’s Cowdale Works which had resisted moves to join BLF initially, but amalgamated in 1908 (Jackson 1950, 193). This decision was presumably to enable the limeworks to benefit from more efficient marketing procedures and access to investment funding. Shortly after amalgamation, in 1909, BLF built the Gatehouse/Office, Power House and Lower Cabin.

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2.9.6 BLF was keen to develop Cowdale and correspondence from 1920, between the company’s solicitors and the Devonshire Estate, sought to take on land to the west and south-west of the then quarry, beyond what had been leased in 1900. The company wished to purchase the land, but the Estate offered it on a 60-year lease (DRO.D504/167/15/6). The outcome has not survived in the file, but the fact that the quarry did extend in those directions suggests that the lease was secured. The plan accompanying the correspondence depicts the rail siding network.

2.9.7 Surviving sets of accounts enable comparison between Cowdale and other quarries within the BLF empire (DRO.D2667/1/Box 26/1). For example, the Trial Balance Sheet for July-December 1917 placed Cowdale in third position in terms of sales revenue (Table 1). The Trial Balance Sheets for the half year ending 31 December 1918 and the quarter ending on 31 March 1919 provide more comparative data that show Cowdale in a variable light (Table 2). Cowdale thus accounted for less than 3 per cent of BLF’s half-year’s sales revenue in 1918, and 9 per cent of profits for the 1919 quarter. It was during this period, in 1918, that Brunner Mond bought out BLF.

2.9.8 In 1921, BLF commissioned a report to look into the opportunities for expanding the various quarries and limeworks (DRO.D504/167/6/14). National demand for both crushed limestone and quicklime could not be met; indeed there was a deficit of 120,000 tons per year. The weekly capacity of each BLF site was calculated (Table 3), and demonstrated that Cowdale accounted for c 7 per cent of total group weekly output. The report recommended that the crushing plant at Cowdale be repaired to boost its output of crushed stone by 5000 tons. It is therefore probable that the old crushing plant and hoppers were replaced as a result of this report by the extant concrete complex. It is possible that the kiln bank was also strengthened at this time.

2.9.9 On 1 January 1921 a new lease came into effect though it was only signed in 1924 as the lessor, Goodwin, had been recalcitrant trying to squeeze ever more from BLF (DRO.D504/167/16/7; D504/167/2). This lease contained identical conditions to the 1900 lease though prices had increased to Goodwin’s overall benefit: royalty was reduced to 1¼d. per ton, and surface rent remained at £2 per acre, but half-yearly rent increased to £125, and a new wayleave clause was inserted at £10 per annum to connect quarry and plant with the mainline railway. This lease was valid for 60 years with get-out clauses after 25, 35 and 45 years. The lease also made mention of a proposed quarry extension westwards, to be called ‘Staden Quarry’, on Devonshire land. BLF had tried, in 1921, to persuade Goodwin to sell the site but he demanded £7000 which was considered unduly excessive by the company (DRO.D504/167/2).

Quarry Revenue as at 31 December 1917

Bur Low £218 4s. 2d. Great Rocks £102 19s. 3d. Cowdale £69 18s. 9d. South £11 5s. Small Dale £7 10s. Dove Holes Dale £7 10s. Table 1: Cowdale: sales revenue 1917

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Quarry Sales revenue as at 31 Profit (loss) for quarter ending 31 December 1918 March 1919

Buxton Central Works £13,260 £3062 Buxton Works £149,892 Cowdale Works £15,697 £1948 Great Rocks Works £114,028 £290 East Buxton Works £25,378 £1177 Small Dale Works £67,288 (£262) Hindlow Works £37,585 £1839 Peak Dale Works £36,734 £608 South Works £29,208 £2729 Ashwood Dale Works £10, 701 (£50) Dove Holes Works £37,518 £2094 Bur Low Works £4128 £48 Brierlow Works £71,651 £2679 Grin Works £1624 Harpur Lime Works £1870 Harpur Stone Works £1238 Mller’s Dale Works £583 Bold Venture Works (£92) Total £613,068 £21,385

Table 2: Cowdale: accounts, 1918 and 1919

2.9.10 By the time the new lease was sealed, BLF incorporated 21 discrete quarries in the Buxton-Dove Holes areas, and the area between Cowdale Quarry and Cowdale valley was marked on a plan as ‘Rockhead’, presumably with the intention of opening that as a new quarry or as an easterly extension to Cowdale (DRO.D504/167/12).

Quarry Capacity (tons/week)

Brierlow 400 Cowdale 250 Harper Hill 400 Harper Hoffmann 500 Grin (Grinlow) 300 Dove Holes Dale 500 Perseverance 300 Great Rocks 200 Hindlow 250 Buxton Central 600 East Buxton 140 Miller’s Dale 200 Total 3760 Table 3: BLF quarries: production capacity, 1921

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Month Profit from Profit from Profit from Overall Rank quarrying crushing lime profit n=22 January £9 10s. nil £606 £597 6 February £2 1s. 5d. £2 0s. 3d. £590 19s. 2d. £595 0s. 10d. 6 March (£4 5s.) £3 4s. 2d. £840 14s. 6d. £839 13s. 8d. 1 April £11 0s. 7d. £17 8s. 6d. £866 19s. 11d. £895 19s. 4 May £8 14s. 8d. £3 16s. 8d. £768 10s. 6d. £781 1s. 10d. 4 June (£11 18s. 3d.) £2 8s. 1d. £810 17s. 10d. £810 7s. 8d. 3 July (£25 13s. 4d.) £1 2s. 10d. £569 17s. 7d. £545 7s. 1d. 5 August (£21 16s. 5d.) £0 13s. 6d. £381 7s. 5d. £360 4s. 6d. 7 September (£12 8s. 8d.) nil £630 10s. 10d. £618 2s. 2d. 5 October (£4 0s. 5d.) £0 3s. 7d. £713 0s. 3d. £709 3s. 5d. 3 November (£2 2s. 4d.) nil £854 16s. 1d. £852 13s. 9d. 2 December £20 16s. 11d. nil £433 9s. 6d. £454 6s. 5d. 3 Table 4: Cowdale: profit and loss account, 1925

2.9.11 The accounts for 1925 show what products Cowdale was marketing, and in what proportion (Table 5). Given the scale of the crushing plant, and the recommendations of the 1921 report, it is difficult to explain why the production statistics for limestone are so small, and why sales were only effected in two of the months in this series. With no similar data being available for other years to inform comparison with the 1924-25 statistics, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions, although one possible explanation is that the new crushing plant was in process of construction during this 15-month period. However, this must remain speculative.

Month Limestone Lime Agricultural Small lime Chatter Bullheads

October 0 2137 77 401 0 107 November 155 1799 72 332 155 127 December 0 1934 48 353 0 0 January 0 2132 26 372 0 0 February 0 1709 52 302 0 0 March 0 2109 134 398 0 0 April 17 2113 10 366 17 0 May 0 2131 9 345 0 0 June 0 2160 0 319 0 0 July 0 1832 66 398 0 0 August 0 1575 108 273 0 0 September 0 1844 40 305 0 0 October 0 1931 51 320 0 0 November 0 1955 0 334 0 0 December 0 1477 0 293 0 0 Total 172 28,838 693 4713 172 234 Table 5: Cowdale: production statistics in tons, 1924-1925

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2.9.12 Lime sales were healthy and broadly constant throughout the period, and Cowdale compares well with the other nine limeworks within the BLF group. Taking June 1925 as a typical example, Cowdale was ranked fourth, only exceeded by Dove Holes Dale, Great Rocks and Harpur Hill. Compared with the three closest limeworks, Cowdale was well ahead: East Buxton at Miller’s Dale only turned out 408 tons and Miller’s Dale itself 441 tons though Buxton Central sold 1512 tons of lime. Sales of small lime were also constant though the pattern of sales of agricultural lime reflects seasonal variations in the application of lime to pastoral land. Minor products, such as chatter and bullheads, were spasmodic and made available as one-off sales. Chatter was basically very small pieces of limestone, usually consigned to the spoil heap as it was too small to burn or crush; while bullheads were large lumps of lime that had been through the lime kilns but had not been fired adequately. They were normally thrown back into the kiln or discarded.

2.9.13 A map drawn up in 1945 purports to show which quarries in the Buxton-Dove Holes area still had functional lime kilns (DRO.D2667/1/Box 24/13). Four quarries had kilns still in operation; Tunstead, Buxton Central, Hindlow Lane and Brier Low. Three other sites had kilns that either lay idle or were derelict; East Buxton, Harpur Hill and Dow Low. Cowdale was not included, and neither was Miller’s Dale, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the survey, as both quarries demonstrably had standing kilns. Cowdale is included on the map as a site with operational crushing plant, along with six other quarries.

2.9.14 A later map, drawn up in advance of designation of the Peak National Park, marked 56 active limestone quarries across the entire carboniferous Limestone area of Derbyshire (DRO.D2667/1/Box 24/15). Thirteen sites were active in the Buxton-Dove Holes area. Cowdale was listed as an active quarry, but the map did not distinguish between crushing and lime burning sites.

2.9.15 It has been suggested that the kilns at Cowdale were decommissioned in 1948, followed by the final abandonment of the site in 1954, although confirmation from primary sources is lacking. It is clear, however, that physically constrained sites like Cowdale, Miller’s Dale, East Buxton and Buxton Central, were at a disadvantage. They had no space for expansion either of the quarry hole or plant, rail access was not the easiest, and they were increasingly perceived as inefficient. The development of the Tunstead site from 1929, which had every advantage that Cowdale lacked, was the death knell for other older sites as ICI concentrated and centralised its operations there. It may be that open-topped kilns like Cowdale’s came to an end during the Second World War as they could not meet blackout regulations.

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2.10 General Description and Analysis of Sites and Structures

2.10.1 A description of all components of the Site is provided in Section 3.6 below, grouped in three distinct categories: individual structural components (A–Z, and AA), mainly standing or ruined buildings; internal transportation infrastructure components (IM 1 – 16), namely incline planes, tramway beds, rail sidings, paths, and the network of compressed air pipes; and quarries and spoil heaps.

2.11 Alterations during the Site’s Operational Life

2.11.1 Provisional Time Line 1899 existing quarries were taken out on lease, on 25 December, by the New Lime Company Limited Buxton on a 29-year agreement 1900 lime kiln battery built, and possibly the earlier crushing plant and hoppers 1908 the company was absorbed within the BLF group 1909 BLF erected the gatehouse/office block, power house and lower cabin 1918 BLF was absorbed by Brunner Mond 1921 a new 60-year lease was negotiated; a report recommended repairs to the crusher 1931 Brunner Mond becomes ICI Lime 1940s the kiln battery was decommissioned, but stone crushing continued 1954 the quarry was closed down completely

2.11.2 The absence of supporting documentary evidence makes difficult the task of identifying the precise chronology of alterations and additions to the original quarry and limeworks/crushing plant site, though the fact that alterations were made is obvious when one examines the form and fabric of the various structures. The nature of building materials is another indicator: the earliest structures were built of rough- hewn or semi-dressed limestone obtained within the Site, probably from where the natural gorge was quarried back to provide space for the rail siding and lime kiln battery. Exactly when this was carried out, and when the battery was erected, are unknown at present: the 1870s and 1898 have both been suggested as possible dates, but both dates have to be rejected ( Section 2.9.3–2.9.5 ).

2.11.3 The kilns were reinforced with pre-cast concrete to prevent structural failure partly caused by the massive size and top-heavy nature of the battery, but the precise date when this was done awaits confirmation. Equally uncertain is when the concrete-built crushing plant was first erected, or if crushed stone was being produced from the quarry’s inception, and when the original small hopper and gantry at the western end of the crushing plant were replaced by the much larger and more complex overhead- loading system. However, it is not possible that the concrete loading hoppers and gantries are early features ( Section 2.9.13 ). Two aerial photographs of the quarry, taken from the south-east and east respectively, do not show the crushing plant that is known to have existed later in the quarry’s life. Whilst these photographs are undated, it is probable that they were taken in the mid-1920s.

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2.11.4 As quarrying moved around from one part of the quarry to another there was a need to modify the network of tramways, spoil heaps and incline planes: the precise chronology of this is not known, but could be suggested with a degree of confidence. The 1922 25 inch and 1938 6 inch Ordnance Survey maps show the internal rail siding joining the external rail line at a point north of component (H) by a bridge over the River Wye, with the eastern extension of the siding seemingly not connected to the mainline. The 1955 edition, however, shows the original link truncated south of the river with no bridge apparent, and the eastern link seemingly connecting with the mainline (Fig. 6). When this change was effected, and why, remains uncertain.

2.12 Values and Detractors

2.12.1 The Peak District National Park boundary comes within c 100m of Cowdale Quarry, at its south-eastern apex close to Cowdale Hall, with the Park excluding a large salient running south-eastwards from Buxton down the heavily-quarried A6 corridor as far as Dowlow and up the equally heavily-quarried Great Rocks Dale to Dove Holes. The Park, established in 1951, shares the same broad aims as other National Parks – enhancing landscape, maintaining and enhancing habitats and promoting biodiversity – but its Landscape Strategy, published in 2009, is very specific in some respects (www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/looking-after/). For the White Peak zone it emphasises that past and current limestone quarries ‘are very important aspects of the White Peak landscape character’ ( op cit , 4); and the Landscape guidelines for this zone state that managing historic mineral landscapes is a priority in certain areas, though the emphasis seems to be on lead mining remains ( op cit , 18). Whilst Cowdale lies beyond the boundary of the Park, it nevertheless contributes to the historic character of the White Peak.

2.12.2 Up to the 1950s, Cowdale would have been a noisy, smoky, bustling hive of industrial activity with the constant clamour of Jubilee carts being trundled from quarry to kilns and crusher, coal and waste stone carts clanking up and down the incline planes, the crashing of stone being tipped into the kilns and mangled through the various crushers, and locos shunting wagons along the sidings. Pollution levels from the open kiln bowls would have been high. All this made it a provider of employment and a source of income for the quarry owners and the local community. It would have been a site that was well known in the local area as the nearest limestone quarry to Buxton (along with Ashwood Dale Quarry across the valley). However, since closure in the mid-1950s, the limeworks may have slipped from public consciousness and awareness. As it cannot be seen from the A6 road, apart from the Gatehouse/Office, to most people it will mean little now. They cannot legally access the site, they cannot see it, and from the road it appears as a wooded wilderness sandwiched between river and cliff.

2.12.3 For those with an interest in industrial history or industrial archaeology in general, or the technology and archaeology of lime burning in particular, the site could be a considerable attraction. If it becomes ever more overgrown, and if the standing structures are allowed by default to decay and collapse, its attractiveness will be diminished over time, and the Site and its story will effectively be lost.

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2.12.4 Recent decades have seen a real increase in public awareness of the importance of the country’s industrial past as ‘heavy’ industry becomes ever more a distant memory. Much of England’s industrial infrastructure has been swept away for re- development or because it was perceived in the 1970s and 1980s in a very negative way as something to be ashamed of and got rid of as soon as possible. Some sites have managed to survive, either because of their remoteness or lack of easy access, or merely by happenstance, and it is important that a representative sample of sites from each industrial category is preserved for the future for their inherent value.

2.12.5 Undoubtedly, there are those who consider large and derelict industrial structures as blots on the landscape, especially if they are surrounded by high-value ‘natural’ landscapes. Nevertheless, with appropriate management of the woodland resource across the site, together with improved public access and appropriate dissemination and promotion of the site, its heritage and landscape values would be enhanced. In addition, there will be people living within the Buxton area who had relatives who worked at Cowdale: public access, interpretation and an appropriate management regime would offer opportunities for links to be re-established between site and community. In turn, this would enhance the social value of the Site. It would also open up opportunities for local schools to research the Site, its methods of operation and working conditions, both on the ground and in historical local newspapers.

2.13 Present and Future Management

2.13.1 Hitherto, with the exception of the main quarry, the Site has had no formal on-site management and no evidence of a maintenance schedule or programme has been gleaned. There is no system in place for special interest groups, particularly in geology or industrial heritage, to access the Site legally. The general lack of management and upkeep across much of the Site is reflected in its air of neglect and abandonment.

2.13.2 If the site is to be viewed as a heritage asset, future management should involve those with a committed interest and stakeholding in the complex who possess the requisite skills and specialist knowledge to ensure that features of importance are protected, stabilised, consolidated and interpreted to best advantage without compromising the various attributes of the Site. If it is to be managed for the future, with long-term public access guaranteed, and with long-term maintenance funding in place, a formal management structure for the Site should be seen as a prerequisite.

2.14 Safety Issues

2.14.1 Quarries are quite rightly perceived as inherently dangerous places. The scale of the vertical rock face between the top and bottom levels of the kiln and crushing plant, and the steep drop from the rail siding to the river, present real safety issues, which are compounded by the current paucity of protective barriers. What protection is in place dates from the Site’s active life and can no longer be considered adequate by today’s health and safety standards. The innate stability of these two vertical drops has not been determined. A length of plastic orange safety fencing has been placed around the west base of the kiln battery, where there has been structural failure of the side face.

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2.14.2 Whilst the steep slopes of the quarries may present an attractive scrambling challenge, there are clear inherent dangers in such activity. It is important that this is recognised and incorporated in any future management regime for the site, should public access be facilitated. However, whatever solutions are adopted in this respect should not detract from the attractiveness and appeal of the Site’s landscape and industrial heritage.

2.14.3 The crushing plant complex, with its hoppers, gantries, chutes, flights of steps and sheer scale, will undoubtedly be a draw for visitors to the site if it was opened up to the public. A careful balance must be struck between making the complex safe and, within reason, accessible while not detracting from its integrity as a rare industrial survival. This same concern equally applies to the two draw arches and the narrow loading platform at the base of the kiln.

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3. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

3.1 Criteria

3.1.1 The Cowdale Site comprises a large disused limestone quarry and limeworks complex, including a large battery of stone-built, vertical top-fed lime kilns, built either towards the end of the nineteenth or early twentieth century. The Site as a whole is recorded on the Historic Environment Record (HER) as number 2895; the kiln battery is recorded as 2894. The limeworks and crushing plant complexes, together with part of the eastern transportation network and associated ancillary buildings, were afforded statutory designation as a Scheduled Monument 2011 (Monument No 1546192; Appendix 1 ), but the bulk of the quarry spoil heaps and the quarry itself were excluded. Thus, the processing complex is designated as an ancient monument in accordance with the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, recognising the site’s national importance. As a scheduled site, it is afforded statutory protection and would require Scheduled Monument Consent for any works that might affect the complex as a whole. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), instituted in 2012, details current government policy with respect to the protection, recording and preservation of heritage assets and historic monuments.

3.1.2 This Statement of Significance will assess the importance of the scheduled monument and the whole limeworks-quarry complex in both a local and a wider context. It will outline Levels of Significance accepted within the heritage sector before considering the actual levels deemed appropriate for the individual components of the complex in its entirety, and discussing how the site operated as a cohesive unit, then outlining various detractors, and finally determining its rarity value and significance as a whole.

3.2 Defining Significance

3.2.1 When applied to an historic building or site, the term ‘significance’ can be taken to have several definitions. The first is importance, suggesting that there is something about the site that is valuable, has status and should not be ignored. A site may be important because it is a rare survival, perhaps the only one in the world, or the earliest known example of its type. It may represent a benchmark in terms of the application of technological development, or be a typical example of such sites. The level to which a site has remained intact is also an important factor in determining its value. The next is the idea of conveying meaning, implying that the site is a source of knowledge. Finally, there is the concept of a sign, that the site is symbolic, and acts as a pointer to something beyond itself. The significance of any site is to a large extent embodied in its surviving fabric.

3.2.2 It is necessary to define what it is that gives significance to a site, and therefore warrants protection. The study area encompasses layers of archaeological and historical development, which include several different functional components. These may be valued for different reasons by different people, all of which should be taken into account in determining the overall significance of a place.

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3.3 Criteria

3.3.1 A schema of hierarchical concepts can be used to define significance, and they are set out in various forms of guidance (English Heritage 2008; Heritage Lottery Fund 2012). The former document identified a range of principles that should be applicable to heritage assets: • Evidential value – this derives from the potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity, including physical remains as the primary source of evidence and the people that made them; • Historical value – this originates from the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present. This may include illustrative value, such as its connection to an important development, such as technology, or associative value, such as the connection to an important event or person; • Aesthetic value – this is derived from the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a place or building. These may be related to the design of a place for example through defensive reasons, or the informal development over time, such as the relationship of structures to their setting; • Communal value – this derives from the meaning of a place for the people who relate to it, this includes commemorative, symbolic, social and spiritual value. For example, some places may be important for reminding us of uncomfortable events in national history . 3.3.2 All of the buildings on the Site are of considerable historical and archaeological significance, which is reflected in the statutory designation of the core of the limeworks as a Scheduled Monument. Notwithstanding the accepted importance of the buildings and their setting, however, some components are of especial significance and are fundamental to their interest. The hierarchy of concepts used in this Statement of Significance can be summarised as follows: • Exceptional (A) - a site has importance at national and/or international level; Scheduled Monuments would normally fit into this category; • Considerable (B) – a site or component is important at a regional level; • Some (C) – a site or component is of local value and importance; • Little (D) – a site or component has no more than minimal local value; • Negative (N) – any aspects of a site that detract from its overall value. 3.3.3 However, where an individual component of a given site may only have local significance, this does not preclude its being important in understanding the site as a whole, and therefore in terms of the overall significance of the site. This also works the other way round: a nationally significant element may not be critical to the site’s overall assessment. To take cognisance of this internal weighting, four bands have been developed based on a combination of widely accepted approaches to conservation management, and the Environmental Capital Approach employed when appraising landscape, heritage resources and biodiversity (HMG 2011):

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• A – those that are critical to a site’s significance; • B – those that are important to its significance; • C – those that form some part of the site’s significance; • D – those that make no identifiable contribution to its significance.

3.3.4 The various components of Cowdale quarry and limeworks, and the complex as a whole, were assessed using these criteria. In addition, the internationally recognised Burra Charter (ICOMOS-Australia 1999) defined those cultural qualities of a given site or place that assist people to understand the past and thereby enrich their lives and those of future generations.

3.3.5 Cultural values can be taken to include the aesthetic, historical, scientific/technological, social and spiritual. Cultural significance can be embodied in the site or place itself, its various components, its landscape setting, its wider associations, its meanings and in its surviving documentary records. Different individuals or groups will perceive cultural significance in different ways and at different depths.

3.3.6 The Venice Convention (1964) set out clear policies for conservation and restoration; while the Valetta and Granada Conventions (1985 and 2001 respectively) gave clear guidance on the desirability of finding new uses for redundant historic buildings and encouraged access and interpretation to historical sites without being detrimental to their long-term integrity.

3.4 Archaeological Studies

3.4.1 Archaeological Research Services Ltd (ARS) were commissioned by Express Park Buxton Ltd to undertake a desk-based assessment and buildings appraisal in advance of that company’s proposals to develop a water-bottling facility within the quarry, along with visitor access to the limeworks complex. This was completed in 2010 (ARS 2010).

3.5 Levels of Significance

3.5.1 The perceived levels of significance of the various component buildings and associated quarry features are summarised in Tables 6–8. The term ‘group value’ is applied in cases where a given component has limited importance standing alone, but greater value when viewed with other components that conjoin to add to the understanding of the whole site.

3.5.2 The stated levels of significance for each individual component (A – Z), and for the infrastructure components, spoil heaps, quarry and coal stocking yard, are based on their level of survival and present condition, and on what is known about each component. In the absence of documentary or oral evidence, archaeological excavation may yield more information on the function and physical characteristics of each component, resulting in a possible reassessment of significance. It is thus important that any such excavation should be carried out in advance of any proposed development so that any potential misinterpretations can be avoided or rectified.

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3.5.3 No account has been taken of geological considerations in ascribing levels of significance to the three quarry components: levels have been determined purely on industrial heritage criteria.

Feature Code Description Significance Level

A Gatehouse / Site Office A B Power House B C Lower Cabin B D Upper Cabin C E Niche D F Kiln Bank A G Crushing Plant Loading Gantry A H Rock-cut Shelter B I Lineside Cabin C J Gateway to Rail Sidings C K Revetment C L Drum House for Lower Incline Plane B M Cabin C N Rock-cut Shelter B O Crushing Plant A P Possible Weigh House C Q Rectangular Building / Powder Magazine C R Rectangular Building / Office D S Reinforced Cabin B T Possible Weigh House C U Compressed Air Tank C V Haulage House for Upper Incline Plane B W Electricity Sub-station C Y Cabin C Z Terminus of Upper Incline Plane C AA Powder House B

Table 6: Levels of Significance of Site Components

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Feature Code Internal Transportation Infrastructure Significance Level

IM1 Roadway from A6 Group Value IM2 Standard Gauge Rail Siding Bed A IM3 Lower Incline Plane A IM4 Tramway from Crushing Plant B IM5 Upper Incline Plane B IM6 Main Tramway from West and Central Quarry B to Kilns IM7 Tramway from Central Quarry to IM4 B IM8 Tramway from East Quarry to Crushing Plant B IM9 Compressed Air Pipe Network n/a IM10 Former Incline Plane Bridge C IM11 Incline Plane Bridge C IM12 Link from Main Tramways to Quarry Faces B IM13 Workman’s Path from Rail Siding to Quarry C IM14 Original Rail Siding Bridge B IM15 Incline Plane to Top of Central Spoil Heap A IM16 Pathway from Powder Store to Quarry C

Table 7: Levels of Significance of Internal Transportation Infrastructure

Feature Code Quarrying and Crushing Components Significance Level

SW West Spoil Heap D SC Central Spoil Heap D SE East Spoil Heap D A Original Western Quarry C B Original Eastern Quarry C WQ West Part of Main Quarry D CQ Central Part of Main Quarry D EQ East Part of Main Quarry D CS Coal Stocking Ground C

Table 8: Levels of Significance of Quarrying and Stone Crushing Components

* The term ‘group value’ is applied in cases where a given component has limited importance standing alone but greater value when viewed with other components that conjoin to add to the understanding of the whole site.

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3.6 SITE COMPONENTS

A: Gatehouse / Site Office

Level of Significance - A

Road access into the site from the A6, and access for employees coming daily from Buxton, was through a substantial concrete-post double gateway with a wide entrance for vehicles and a narrow entrance for pedestrians (Plate 10). The 80m-long Access Road rises to the Gatehouse, which was probably built after the incorporation of the complex into the Buxton Lime Firms Ltd (BLF) in 1908 (Plate 11). The building is largely of reinforced cast concrete, with some common brick elements, all cement-rendered internally and externally, with brick pilaster pillars internally and a concrete-section roof. It is divided into four cells, with the original access being through a porch at the north-west corner, accessed by a short flight of now-buried steps. There is a blocked doorway in the north corner of the south-east gable wall, and one of the double windows in the front elevation was converted at some point into a broad doorway. Towards the end of the site’s working life this building was utilised as a bike shed, which may explain why this doorway was inserted. Externally it measures 15m by 4.5m and it has an internal height of 2.9m. Currently there is vegetation growth through the floor, water ingress through the ceiling and rear wall in three bays. Immediately behind the Gatehouse is an ancillary concrete-built structure, now roofless and part-filled with soil and rubble. It is of unknown purpose.

Plate 10: View of the gateway entrance to the quarry

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Plate 11: View of the Gatehouse/Office

On the Gatehouse roof two circular, ceramic apertures set in a concrete plinth towards the east end of the building would have served as air vents but must have had cowls to prevent egress of rain. The plinth is 760mm in length by 470mm in width and stands 600mm proud of the roof, with the ceramic aperture also being 600mm deep. At the opposite end, there is a further concrete plinth (760 x 460 x 600mm) of unknown purpose.

The Gatehouse is considered an element of considerable importance, notably because of the intricate dentilled decorative work to the concrete, which is repeated in several of the post-1908 buildings in the complex. It has hints of the later Art Deco style, which post-dates the First World War, and informs an aesthetic desire on the part of the company to make their main buildings more than merely functional. The application of this type of decorative detail in the context of a limestone quarry / limeworks is potentially unique.

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B: P OWER HOUSE Level of Significance – B

The Power House was demolished in May 2011, though the rear wall still stands. It was originally c 30m long by 9-10m wide externally, with a height on both end wings of 4-5m and a height in the central block nearer 8m. All that now remains, apart from the rear wall, is a disorganised pile of rubble (Plate 12) with the quarried rock face now visible behind what was the rear of the building, but within the rubble are hints of adaptive reuse by the company. Entrained within some of the concrete rubble masses are reused and highly sintered firebricks from the lime kilns, with one bearing a partly illegible manufacturer’s stamp which seems to read - - - 1219 – 8 on one line above H __THE(?)FIELD on the lower line. Attempts to identify the manufacturer have been unsuccessful. Given that BLF may have built the power house in 1909, according to a now lost datestone, and the site may have only opened c 1899, it follows that it was built using firebrick taken out of at least one of the kiln bowls during (possibly) its first re-lining: kilns had to be re-lined with new firebrick every few years. The power house site lies c 70m west of the coal stocking ground. It stands out clearly on the undated (1920s?) aerial photographs.

Even though it has now been demolished, its existence and the footprint it leaves on the ground do help to inform understanding of how the Site as a whole operated; it was an integral component of the complex and it had an unusual design and decorative embellishments way beyond the purely functional.

Plate 12: Demolished remains of the Power House

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C: L OWER CABIN Level of Significance – B

Lying atop a 2.7m-high lime-mortared stone revetment wall alongside and above the main rail siding (Feature IM2), and below the lower incline plane (Feature IM3), is a substantial building constructed in the same ornate and decorative style as the Gatehouse, with six window apertures in the front (north) face (Plate 13). It was built of cast-concrete blocks with a concrete slab roof and an internal partition wall of common brick, and laid as stretcher bond, from one gable to the other forming a narrow rear passageway giving access behind the west cell to the smaller east cell. Internal walls show traces of limewash, as well as the shadows of where timber battens had been fixed, possibly for shelving.

Plate 13: View of the Lower Cabin

The east cell has two window apertures in the front elevation, a large window aperture in the east gable, and a smaller squared aperture next to it with an iron fixing ring set into the external side of the wall at each of its top corners. There is a concrete bench running the length of the rear wall. The west cell has two window apertures in the front elevation. On the roof there are four circular apertures, all with low common brick surrounds: the western aperture has a diameter of 220mm, the next one along 120mm, and the third 170mm. All were air vents and must have had protective cowls. At the east end of the roof is a concrete plinth 600 x 670 x 800mm externally with internal dimensions of 260 x 280mm and a depth of 1m. Access to the building was by a twin door in the north-west gable, the north door accessing the west cell, the east the passage to the east cell. The doorways were approached along an access ramp from the north-west with timber revetment.

This building has more than local importance by virtue of its decorative mouldings and structural style. It is also a rare extant example of what was probably a workmen’s welfare cabin.

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D: U PPER CABIN Level of Significance – C

This is a derelict building constructed of lime-mortared limestone with much of it now collapsed (Plate 14). There is a long concrete window sill in the front (north) elevation, but no sign of the doorway is visible. It has some common brick and reused firebrick visible amongst the stonework. It was crudely built and is older than the Lower Cabin. Given that the Upper Cabin lies on the lower edge of the original quarry hole, this cabin may well have been coeval with the working of that quarry face, and abandoned when the lower cabin was built. A mature sycamore tree growing against and pushing down the west gable supports this conclusion (Plate 14).

The derelict condition of the Upper Cabin impacts negatively on its importance, but it does have group value in helping construct a picture of how the entire site operated and of its various chronological phases.

Plate 14: View of the Upper Cabin

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E: N ICHE Level of Significance – D

A short distance to the east of the Lower Cabin, and set into the east end of the same revetment walling that supports it, is an open niche, 2.5m wide by 900mm deep by 1.87m high, with a roof of four timber beams supporting two courses of limestone, and a concrete floor (Plate 15). It lies adjacent to the main railway siding track bed and was probably connected to the logistics of shunting rail wagons, perhaps as a workmen’s shelter or tool/lamp store.

The niche would have had minimal importance in the overall scheme of operations.

Plate 15: Niche to the east of the Lower Cabin

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F: L IME KILN BANK Level of Significance – A

Built into the c 20m-high rock face, created by blasting rock away to make sufficient space, is an impressive bank of four lime kilns that are certainly coeval with the opening of the Cowdale complex. To create space to construct the bank and ancillary structures, the natural gorge wall of Ashwood Dale was quarried back for a distance in excess of 25m. The bank is massive in scale, and is evidence of the enormous output from this particular limeworks. The kilns are not marked on the 1898 1:2500 or 1899 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey maps, though the former does show that one section of pre-existing woodland marked on the 1879 1:2500 map had been cleared: that section corresponds to the area where the kiln bank was constructed, so it may be concluded that this area was about to be quarried back to enable the kilns to be constructed.

The bank consists of four bowls, or pots, where limestone was calcined to produce burnt lime, or quicklime. The bank was built as a rectangular structure, of mortared rubble limestone with semi-dressed limestone quoins down each front corner. The kiln parapet (the front edge on the bank top) is recessed forming a step in the front profile c 1.5 x c 2m high. The entire kiln top was finished in concrete to create a firm working surface, into which were set the four bowls. At the top, the bowls were clearly circular, but as they have been capped with concrete it is impossible to determine what shape they have below the surface. Measured from the parapet, the bank is 31.5m wide and 9.3m deep, and the kilns extend the full height of the quarried face. Iron fencing provides a protective barrier around all three edges of the parapet. As with other components of the site, there are signs of adaptive reuse in the kiln bank, namely insertion of reused firebricks in the topmost part of the west face.

Limestone was brought from the quarry to the kiln top in Jubilee carts with a capacity of 1t. Each was hand-pushed on a circular tramway track to whichever bowl was being loaded and side-tipped into the bowl (ARS 2010, Fig 5). The easternmost bowl has the circular rail track still in place. Coal was also tipped into the bowls in the same way.

The front face of the kiln bank is squared and slightly battered, and is perforated by two arched chambers (the draw arches) with arches formed by four courses of common brick resting on semi-dressed limestone quoins (Plate 16). The western draw arch is 9.6m in length, ending in a natural rock face, by 3.6m in width and 3.7m in height measured at the apex of the arch. The eastern draw arch has more or less the same dimensions. Each draw arch has two recesses built into each side face, 2m wide by 920mm deep by 2m high. Each recess contains a cast-iron discharging hopper (the kiln eye) 780mm wide by 940mm deep, by 850mm high at the front edge. Each draw arch served two bowls; each bowl was served by two eyes.

Running along the base of the front face of the kiln bank is the loading platform, built 2m above the ground level in front of the bank (Plate 17). Parallel to the loading platform was a standard-gauge rail track: quicklime was transferred from the eyes, almost certainly in hand- pushed wheelbarrows, to be tipped from the loading platform across fixed planks into the rail wagons below. The loading platform and draw arches were accessed up a flight of concrete steps at the western end of the loading platform.

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Plate 16: The western draw arch in the kiln bank

Plate 17: The loading platform, and later concrete buttresses

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There is clear evidence that the kiln bank, as originally built, became inherently unstable. At the eastern end much of the masonry, including most of the quoins, had collapsed and a botched repair using concrete was effected to try and prevent further slippage. This had only limited effect and, probably in 1931, major stabilisation works were undertaken to prolong the life of the kilns. This took the form of encasing the kiln frontage in pre-cast concrete. In addition, five massive pre-cast concrete buttresses were installed to hold the casing in place. A contemporary image shows a large building behind the kiln top, probably a blacksmith’s shop, of which no above-ground trace has survived (ARS 2010, Fig. 5).

The kiln bank is of exceptional national importance, and is potentially unique in its final form. The massive scale of the original build, and the massive scale and very existence of the concrete casing and buttressing, inform its significance. The very fact that it was built at the turn of the nineteenth century using what by then was outdated technology make it a very late survival of traditional kiln technology. It was, reduced to a simplistic level, a glorified vertical field kiln of the type built across all limestone regions from the late seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth. Stone and coal were top-loaded with no separation between the two materials which meant that much of the quicklime produced was contaminated by coal. The central third of each bowl was where calcining took place, ideally in temperatures in excess of 1000 oC, where moisture and carbon within the limestone were driven off by a chemical reaction to leave pure quicklime (Johnson 2010, 56-63). The heat from this central zone rose through the bowl to dry out and warm up fresh stone and fuel tipped in at the top, thereby reducing the quantity of fuel needed to maintain the burn.

As the stone in the central firing zone dropped down to the lower third of the kiln, it slowly cooled to a temperature of c 60 oC, ready to be drawn through the eyes. This centuries-old process was efficient to a point but, largely because the bowls were open to the elements at the top, much of the heat generated within the bowls was lost to the atmosphere, thereby increasing fuel consumption rates.

By 1898-99 much more efficient kiln types had been patented and put into use. The most common and successful late nineteenth-century kiln type, the Hoffmann continuous kiln, was adopted at other Derbyshire limeworks, namely Harpur Hill (SK 064 709), Dowlow (SK100 677) and Alsop Moor (SK159 565), but these kilns needed a substantial area of flat land with direct rail access (Johnson 2002; 2003). This was impossible at Cowdale given its steep and restrictive topography. Two kiln types patented in 1870 and 1894 by PW Spencer Ltd, which was the company that started Brierlow Limeworks, were vertical and stone-built and would have been suitable at Cowdale and, furthermore, used state-of-the-art vertical kiln technology (Johnson 2010, 166-72; Spencer 767; Spencer 16,043). John Briggs, whose family owned Dowlow Limeworks, patented another vertical kiln variant in 1883 (Briggs 4876). Why the decision was taken at Cowdale to stick with age-old technology is unknown.

It is also believed that Cowdale was the last quarry, at least in Derbyshire, to use traditional vertical kiln technology with the kiln bank only being shut down in 1954 (English Heritage 2011), further adding to its level of significance.

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G: C RUSHING PLANT LOADING GANTRY AND O C RUSHING PLANT Level of Significance – A

On the same level as the base of the kiln bank, and c 100m further east, is the equally massive superstructure for loading crushed raw limestone into rail wagons. Close examination of surviving structures indicates that there were two phases of construction. The earlier phase lies at the western end, and survives as a tall and highly degraded and ruinous pre-cast concrete pillar and a single squared loading chute on top of the rock face, level with the working quarry floor. All other elements of this loading system have long since been stripped out, and indeed may have been dismantled when the second phase was built.

The crushing plant loading gantry stands on three tiers, between the top of the rock face and the rail sidings at the base. Again, many of the elements of the complex have been stripped out, leaving in place just those made of pre-cast concrete which makes full understanding of the complex difficult. The actual stone crushing plant, which stood on the highest level above the rock face, set back from the edge of the face, has all been dismantled and demolished but can be understood from a surviving photograph from c 1932 (ARS 2010, Fig 2). It was evidently the standard system of primary and secondary crushers, screen houses and interlinking conveyor belts that can still be seen (in updated form) in working quarries today.

A protective concrete wall runs along the edge of the rock face, against which rests a pair of cast-iron doors that would have been from the top of a loading chute. Two flights of concrete steps (15 then 20 steps) lead down from the top level to the middle level, where there survives a highly complex system of concrete pillars, chute supports and gantries. One cast- iron chute remains in place, and a bank of six metal and concrete chutes (Plate 18) set into the massive lower level concrete wall, seen from the rail sidings below as six now-blocked apertures. Crushed stone was fed from the crushing plant through a sequence of chutes and hoppers, with different chutes delivering stone of different sizes, to the loading gantry on the rail siding level below. This gantry, made of pre-cast concrete, is set against the lowest level of the massive buttressing to the chutes and gantries higher up – the lower level was built of rubble limestone, the middle and upper tiers of concrete. The actual rail-loading gantry stands on four concrete pillars (Plate 19), with twin standard-gauge rail track beds running underneath for direct loading of crushed stone. A series of cast-iron pulley wheels from the loading mechanism has survived, with part of the electric switchgear still in place.

The sheer scale and complexity of this entire complex, set as it is on three vertical tiers, its high level of physical survival, and the use of pre-cast concrete, make this an important element of the entire site. As with the kiln bank, the massive scale points up the large-scale production of crushed stone achieved at Cowdale. To have the capacity to simultaneously load twin sets of rail wagons is unusual; to have it survive is exceptional. Given that the basic constructional material was pre-cast concrete, even for the earlier phase, it can probably be assumed that stone crushing was not undertaken in the quarry’s earliest days, or at least not using fixed plant. Even the early phase must have been built later, possibly when BLF Ltd took over the company, or after 1924 when a new lease for the site was negotiated. It is also possible that the later and more massive loading complex was erected when the kiln bank was encased and supported by concrete supports.

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Plate 18: Bank of chutes

Plate 19: Twin rail bed loading gantry

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H: R OCK -CUT SHELTER Level of Significance – B

A linear rock-cut shelter situated some 95m to the east of the loading gantry was cut into the base of the rock face quarried out to create space for the rail sidings. It is 4.75m long, 600mm to 1.7m wide, and 1.8m high (Plate 20). Its entrance was protected by a linear dry stone blast wall 2.55m long by 800mm wide with a surviving height of 1.3m.

It is unlikely to have been cut to create a shelter for storing explosives as black powder, then in general use, needed to be stored in cool dry conditions. While the shelter is certainly cool it is not dry but damp. In addition, its situation must rule out storage. It is too far away from the quarry that was worked to supply the kiln bank and crushing plant, and was probably associated with the cutting and quarrying of the natural rock face to create space for the rail siding, loading gantry (G) and lime kiln bank (F), at the very start of the site’s development. Its probable use was as a shelter for workmen while blasting was in process further along the face. As such, it would be a rare survivor as in most quarries such shelters were free- standing structures or, had they been rock-cut like this one, later quarrying would have destroyed them.

Plate 20: Rock-cut shelter

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I: L INESIDE CABIN Level of Significance – C

A largely derelict, rubble limestone-built cabin stands adjacent to the main line at the point where the rail siding joined the main Midland Railway line, immediately east of the bridge over the River Wye. It had a doorway in the east facade and quoins of semi-dressed limestone. A window aperture was inserted in the west façade (Plate 21). A linear rock-cut shelter to the east of the loading gantry was cut into the base of the rock face quarried out to create space for the rail sidings. It is 4.75m in length by 600mm to 1.7m in width with a height of 1.8m. Its entrance was protected by a linear dry stone blast wall 2.55m long by 800mm wide with a surviving height of 1.3m.

The cabin would have served as a normal lineside cabin for railway workers but could also have been used as a shelter for anyone opening or closing the gates into the limeworks siding, or operating the points system there when trains were being shunted in and out. Thus, it has only local significance in isolation, but has greater group value as an integral part of the site’s operations.

Plate 21: The remains of the Lineside Cabin

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J: G ATEPOSTS TO RAIL SIDINGS Level of Significance – C

Adjacent to the cabin are the timber gateposts for the now-missing original gate(s) at the junction of the siding and the main line (Plate 22). The gateway was connected to the cabin by a low dry stone wall, marking the boundary of the site.

In isolation, the posts have only minor significance but they do have greater group value as part of the workings and integrity of the whole site.

Plate 22: The remains of the gateway to the sidings

K: R EVETMENT WALL Level of Significance – C

Approximately half way up the Lower Incline Plane (Feature IM3), just beyond the Upper and Lower Cabins (C and D), on its upper (south) side is an 8m-long section of battered revetment wall, of mortared limestone rubble, standing intact to a height of 2.7m. It is flat topped and borders the incline plane. Three iron stanchions are set vertically into its top surface. The ground above it rises very steeply and it has not been possible to determine its function: it was not just a wall to hold back the slope, though, as similar revetment would have been needed further up and down the incline plane.

It was probably connected in some (unknown) way to the operation of the incline plane and, as such, it has only local importance.

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L: D RUM HOUSE FOR LOWER INCLINE PLANE Level of Significance – B

Adjacent to the top of the lime kiln bank (F), at its south-eastern corner, are the remnants of a Drum House that was an integral part of the lower incline plane (IM3). It was constructed of pre-cast concrete sectional slabs (Plate 23), and is open sided on the west-facing elevation. It has a window aperture on its south-facing elevation. Externally, it extends 5.6m by 5.1m, and survives to a maximum height of 2.45m. Set within it are the remains of the mounting mechanism for the actual winding drum that held the wire cable hauling full carts uphill and letting down empty ones. Outside the open side is a narrow linear pit, 1.5m long by 0.5m wide, lined with reused firebrick and containing some surviving iron fittings.

Various types of incline plane were used in quarries in the late nineteenth and early to mid- twentieth centuries. ‘Single-rope haulage’ worked off a drum at the top of the incline. One end of the cable was attached to the drum, and the other to the leading cart in a linked series of up to six carts. A brakesman let out the cable to lower the carts and in reverse hauled them back up again. A second system, ‘main and tail haulage’, relied more on gravity to send carts down the incline but this was primarily used when the loaded carts were being sent downhill. The main cable pulled empty ones up while the narrower tail cable lowered full ones down with each working off its own drum.

A third common system of incline plane relied on an ‘endless (steel) rope’. Several full carts were clipped on to the cable, or chain, and let down under gravity with empty carts being hauled back up by the weight of full carts descending. Given that this incline plane was hauling full carts uphill, it is probable that this incline plane operated on the single-rope haulage system, with no external motive power needed. What is an unknown quantity in this drum house are the details of the brakesman’s cabin above the drum.

Whereas just about every quarry in the land had at least one inclined plane, the rate of survival of incline planes and hauling mechanisms is low, as later quarrying using more modern methods tends to have swept all traces away. The Drum House at Cowdale is important as one of the relatively rare survivors.

The Drum House is also important because, from the 1955 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map, it seems to have been connected to three other tramways: two (IM6) running from the quarry to the kiln bank; and one (IM4) running along the edge of the rock face to the crushing plant, though it is equally possible that these were not actually operated from this drum house. Close inspection of these features shows that the Drum House is not aligned with the lower incline plane, a fact reinforced by the 1955 map, and there has to have been some means by which carts being hauled up and let down were turned through the angle. Why it was not directly aligned could not be determined.

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Plate 23: Remains of the Drum House for the Lower Incline Plane

M: C ABIN Level of Significance – C

Where the tramway (IM6) opens out into the quarry are the scant remains of a small building, shown on the 1955 map as an L-shaped structure, but seen on the ground as rectangular. The demolished remains comprise a squared brick-built structure set within a larger structure built of limestone in a rubble dry stone manner. Its partly surviving west wall seems to decrease in height from north to south.

The intended purpose of this structure is difficult to determine precisely, although it is annotated on a plan of the works of 1948 as a ‘cabin’. Its position at the north edge of the western quarry, and its design (one wall inside the other) suggest that it may have been used as a protective shelter for workmen when blasting on the opposite face of the quarry was in progress. Alternatively, it may just have been a general-purpose quarrymen’s cabin for shelter, in which case the double walling may have been to protect the cabin during blasts rather than men.

The Cabin has some importance locally as an example of early safety measures designed to protect quarrymen and/or their facilities.

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N: R OCK -CUT SHELTER Level of Significance – B

Set into the northern face of the western part of the quarry is a rock-cut shelter (Plate 24), very similar in detail to Shelter H. This one is 5.6m long and 1.2m in average width and 1.8m high, and it is similarly protected by a linear blast wall 3.6m long by 0.9m wide. For the same reason as Shelter H, it is considered unlikely that this was a powder store, and more probable that it served as a shelter for quarrymen during blasting operations on the opposite side of the quarry. It is also considered of regional importance for the same reasons as Shelter H.

Plate 24: Rock-cut shelter

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P: P OSSIBLE WEIGH HOUSE Level of Significance – C

Lying next to the main tramway from the central part of the quarry to the crushing plant are the remnants of a small rectangular building with three sides surviving (Plate 25). It was built of mortared rubble limestone, and was plastered on the inside of the walls. Its internal length is 3.3m.

In pre-mechanised days, limestone quarries operated on the ‘breaker and filler’ system, whereby individual quarrymen worked on specific sections of currently worked face, each with its own tramway link. It was their task to smash rock to the requisite size and to fill as many Jubilee carts as they could manage in a day, then to push filled carts out of the quarry to either the kilns or crushing plant. They were usually paid on a piecework basis, and their daily pay reflected how many tonnes of rock they delivered to the weigh house.

As the putative weigh house is directly on tramway IM7, with its long side parallel to the tramway track, it almost certainly served as a weigh house for carts destined for the crushing plant. Alongside it, under the track, would have been the weighbridge. Again, such buildings were swept away by later mechanised operations in most quarries, so this is a rare survivor that can be linked to a specific function.

Plate 25: Remains of a possible weigh house on the tramway from the central quarry to the kiln top

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Q: R ECTANGULAR BUILDING Level of Significance – C

A short distance to the south of the putative weigh house, further into the central part of the quarry, is a long rectangular building measuring c 10m by 4.8m internally (Plate 26). Its external walls are a mixture of rubble limestone and reused firebrick, it has an internal dividing wall of common brick, and the northern section had a pre-cast concrete slab roof. Given that it as reused firebrick within its build, it has to post-date the earliest phase of the quarry and be coeval with, at least, the first re-lining of the lime kiln bowls. It is depicted on a plan of the site of 1948 as part of a group of buildings labelled ‘Cabin and offices’, and is shown on the 1955 edition of mapping as a large L-shaped structure.

It is difficult to understand why there would have been an office within the quarry and why only the northern section needed a concrete roof. It is not possible that this section was used as a powder store, as it is too close to other buildings, but it may have started life as a blast- proof workmens’ shelter with the rest used as a general store. Its importance now, in its severely reduced state, lies in its group value.

Plate 26: Remains of a rectangular stone-built building with concrete roof at north end

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R: R ECTANGULAR BUILDING Level of Significance – D

Parallel to, and immediately to the west of Building Q, is a smaller rectangular building made entirely of brick, with a window in the north gable wall. It has been largely demolished. It was clearly built more recently than Building Q, but its condition precludes ascribing a particular function to it. It may have been a store or a general-purpose cabin. It has very limited importance.

S: R EINFORCED CABIN Level of Significance – B

The remains of a building that was clearly blown up, probably when the quarry closed, also survive in the central part of the quarry. Internally, it measured 3 x 2.2m, with walls of mortared rubble-built limestone (Plate 27). Its roof was composed of pre-cast concrete, 170mm thick. The position and constructional details of this building inform its function as a quarrymen’s shelter with a roof and walls strong and thick enough to withstand the impact from rocks hurled away from the quarry face during blasting. A similar-sized shelter, with the same type of walls and roof, is known to exist in the disused Foredale limestone quarry in the Yorkshire Dales, but their survival is rare. As with other early structures, shelters like this one were generally swept away by later mechanised operations, in times when health and safety procedures had banned such in-quarry cabins. It is therefore considered important in more than a purely local manner.

Plate 27: Demolished stone-built structure with concrete roof

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T: P OSSIBLE WEIGH HOUSE Level of Significance – C Where tramway IM8 opens out into the eastern part of the quarry there is an intact squared building with walls made of concrete, and with a concrete roof (Plate 28). Internally, it is 3.2 x 2.5m. Internal walls and ceiling were limewashed, and it has window apertures in the south and east walls, and a doorway in the north. The south-facing window gave the occupants a view into the quarry, while the large east-facing aperture was parallel to and directly accessible from the tramway. It is of later construction than the complex of buildings along tramways IM6 and IM7, and is considered to be contemporary with an easterly extension of quarrying operations. It seems very clear on the ground that this was a weigh house serving tramway IM8 from this later quarry to the crushing plant. As an intact survivor, it is important within the quarry’s overall group value.

Plate 28: Possible weigh house

U: C YLINDRICAL TANK Level of Significance – B/C Lying close to the upper incline plane, on the eastern spoil heaps, is a large cast-iron cylindrical tank, which survives in very good condition. It measures 4.6m long with a diameter of 1.5m, but is not in-situ . It is likely to be a compressed air receiver, forming part of the plant that generated compressed air used in drilling holes for blasting rock. This will have required power, presumably electric, which may have been supplied via sub-station W. If it was a compressed air receiver, it is a very rare survivor so would have a higher level of significance (B) than if it was just a boiler (C).

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V: H AULAGE HOUSE FOR UPPER INCLINE PLANE Level of Significance – B

Situated to the north of the Upper Incline Plane (IM5) are the remains of what is labelled on the 1948 plan as a ‘Haulage house’. This operated the Upper Incline Plane, hauling full carts up from the quarry floor to the top of the eastern set of spoil heaps and lowering empty ones down. As with the lower incline plane (IM3), it probably utilised the single-rope haulage system and, as it lies adjacent to an electrical sub-station, it would have been powered electrically. Several fixings and fragments of wire rope lie around the structure (Plate 29). The building had two cells, and was made of common brick. It was a later addition to the quarry’s plant and infrastructure.

Taken together with the incline plane network, the Haulage House is a rare survivor, and its place within the overall quarry operations is clear to understand. Its evidential value is thus considered to be of more than local significance.

Plate 29: Remains of the Haulage House for the Upper Incline Plane

W: E LECTRICITY SUB -STATION Level of Significance – C

The remains of a brick-built, rectangular electrical sub-station lie immediately to the east of the Haulage House. The building is annotated as such on the plan of 1948. Pole fixings lie outside the building.

In isolation, the sub-station has only limited importance, but in terms of group value it has local significance in understanding the later internal transportation operations of the quarry.

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Y: C ABIN Level of Significance – C

Towards the eastern end of the Upper Incline Plane lie the scant remains of a crudely-built limestone rubble structure, measuring internally 2.2m square. It is set into the edge of a spoil heap and close to the incline plane.

The structure was probably a workmen’s cabin, or possibly a tool store, associated with the upper incline lying as it does near its eastern terminus. In isolation, it has minimal significance but its group value is higher.

Z: T ERMINUS OF UPPER INCLINE PLANE Level of Significance – C

The Upper Incline Plane terminates at the eastern end of a narrow finger of the eastern spoil heaps as a 1.5m-high stone buttress (Plate 30). Set into its top surface are a cast-iron curved road, and an iron bracket which served to carry the wire rope back on itself.

It is rare to find stone-built incline plane termini still extant and in a sound condition, and the feature also has group value beyond the merely local.

Plate 30: Terminus of Upper Incline Plane

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AA: POWDER HOUSE

Level of Significance – B

Black powder had to be stored in a building that met three basic criteria: it had to be far away from where blasting took place, so was often sited outside actual quarries; it needed to be secure from theft and external threats, so was built solidly; and it had to be totally dry. The powder house for Cowdale Quarry met all three criteria. It was sited outside the quarry, 30m beyond the boundary fence to the west (at SK0758 7253), and was built in a shallow quarried scoop in a natural bank (Plate 31). It was constructed with mortared limestone rubble walls 500mm thick and a concrete sectional roof 150mm thick, and was surrounded by a protective dry stone wall set 1.2m away from the building itself. Internal walls contain numerous firebricks. It measures 4.25m by 4.25m externally. External height is 2.8m, less than the internal height, but this powder house had a suspended wooden floor to prevent rising damp adversely affecting the powder, and to prevent sparks from hob-nailed boots. Internal walls would have been lined with timber panelling or planking and a sturdy door would have ensured it was kept secure. An equally secure door and internal dividing wall separated the narrower (1.2m) front cell from the rear (1.5m-wide) cell. This structure was in place at least by 1921, and it performed a vital role in the life of the site and is a rare example of an early twentieth-century powder store. It contrasts in every way with later powder stores, such as that outside Bee Low Quarry near Dove Holes ( Appendix 4 ).

Almost identical (surviving) powder houses, dating from the early twentieth century, are known at limestone quarries in the Yorkshire Dales, such as Foredale Quarry (Johnson 2006), Ribblehead Quarry in Upper Ribblesdale, and Threshfield Quarry in Upper Wharfedale (now partly demolished).

Plate 31: The Powder House

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INTERNAL TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Prior to mechanisation and replacement of the breakers and fillers mode of operation, limestone quarries relied on rail-based transportation systems to move materials around, into and out of the site. Tramways were used to move raw stone from the working faces within the quarry to either crushing plant or lime kilns. In many cases the motive power was the strength of the breakers and fillers themselves: they pushed filled carts from their section of working face either to the plant or kilns, via a weigh house, or to a point on the co-axial tramway where several carts could be linked up to be hauled by pony or, in larger quarries or those with difficult ground, by small shunting locomotives. Where sloping topography had to be contended with, incline planes were the only possible means of transferring raw stone out of the quarry to crushing plant or kilns, or transferring coal to the top of the kilns.

The finished products of lime and crushed stone had to be despatched from the site to market. Smaller or less accessible centres had no option other than to rely on road transport, but ideally direct rail access was the norm with sidings installed parallel to the main line at the kilns or crushing plant, or by siding links off the main railway line. At Cowdale all aspects of each stage of the transportation system were utilised, and much of it can still be seen on the ground, except within the quarry itself. Here, it can be reconstructed from a photograph taken c 1932 (Plate 32), which shows one co-axial tramway (IM12) running the length of the quarry, on its southern side, with individual branches running off it to different sections along the then-working face. The photograph also shows side-tipping Jubilee carts on three of the branches, with others being gathered together in groups on the main line. Jubilee track was portable so the system could easily be reconfigured to suit the changing needs of quarrying operations. Because the quarry floor had topsoil laid on it after abandonment, to create pasture, all traces of the co-axial line and branches have either gone or lie buried.

Plate 32: Aerial photograph across the quarry in c 1932

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IM 1: R OAD ACCESS

Access from Buxton was via the 80m-long roadway rising through the entry gates and Gatehouse (A) to the main junction of the rail siding and the lower tramway. This would have been the point at which workmen coming from Buxton entered and left their workplace.

IM2: S TANDARD GAUGE RAILWAY SIDING Level of Significance – A The Ordnance Survey map of 1922 shows that the siding link was joined to the main Midland Railway line a short distance east of the Loading Gantry (G), and was carried over the river on a bridge at that point. The same map also shows the siding running eastwards to almost join the main line at the eastern end of the main line bridge over the river. By the time the 1948 plan was surveyed, this link and bridge had been abandoned, and the eastern line had been extended to join the main line at the east end of that bridge. The siding line ran for a total distance of 650m from the entrance Gateway (J), past the crushing plant Loading Gantry (G), Kiln Bank (F) and Lower Cabin (C), almost to the western end of the site at the Power House (B) where it terminated. Between the Gateway and a short distance east of the Loading Gantry it was a single-track line, before branching into two and then three at the gantry. Two tracks ran underneath the gantry, with the outer track bypassing it, after which two lines ran to the kiln, one bypassing them and the other forming a siding. The two tracks again merged just before the Lower Cabin, by Niche E, beyond which it reverted to a single line. The length between the Lower Cabin (D) and the assumed coal stocking ground was lined on the lower (north) side, with timber beams laid horizontally and held in place by lengths of reused Jubilee line. The length of the siding link emphasises the enormous extent of the Cowdale complex, and the complexity of the link reinforces the high level of production of both lime and crushed stone from the site. Incoming traffic mainly carried coal to fuel the kilns and this would have been stockpiled at the western end of the link between the junction of the Access Road (IM1), Railway Siding (IM2) and Lower Incline Plane (IM3).

In most quarries road transport replaced rail links during the late twentieth century, often as main lines were closed down, and most of the sidings have long since disappeared. The fact that this siding link has survived in recognisable form (Plate 33), with the imprints of sleepers visible in several places along the line, enhances its importance.

Plate 33: Remains of the standard gauge rail bed to the east of the kiln battery

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IM3: L OWER INCLINE PLANE Level of Significance – A Starting at the assumed coal stocking ground, the Lower Incline Plane rises past the Upper Cabin (C) and the Revetment Wall (K). It was a double-track incline plane, 2.3m wide, terminating at the top of the Kiln Bank (F) (Plate 34). The total length from the junction at the bottom to the break of slope at the kiln top was 150m, with a further 20m or so from there to the drum house. Because the ground rises steeply on the south side and falls off to the railway siding on the north, the edges of the incline plane were stabilised in various ways, each of them illustrating yet more examples of adaptive reuse. At the bottom end, the upper side was revetted with limestone walling, and a combination of common brick and reused firebrick on the lower. Along much of its length the lower side was protected by crude fencing, consisting of strands of wire strung between lengths of reused Jubilee line set vertically as fence posts.

Plate 34: Terminus of the Lower Incline Plane

The Lower Incline Plane’s main function was to move incoming coal from the stocking ground to the kiln top. In its early days it may also have been used for taking limestone from the original part of the quarry to the kiln top, though the nature of the terrain and the density of vegetation growth between that quarry floor and the incline plane makes it impossible to identify how this link may have been made; it is possible that the length of Revetment Wall (K) was associated with this function.

This incline plane was essential to the running of the quarry and limeworks, in the same way as the rail siding and, because it is intact and clearly seen, it is a rare survivor so must be considered to have more than regional significance.

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IM4: T RAMWAY FROM KILN TOP TO CRUSHING PLANT Level of Significance – B

A horizontal tramway connected the lime kiln top with the crushing plant, and also linked in with tramways IM6, IM7 and IM8 that led into different parts of the quarry. It is shown thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1955, and the trackbed is also clear on the ground, sandwiched between the edge of the rock face and the central spoil heaps. Since the site was abandoned, material from the spoil heap has been slipping onto the trackbed, and it is evident that this was also a problem during the site’s working life: one long section was revetted against slippage by construction of a low wall composed of reused firebrick (Plate 35). The track bed is 130m long and was wide enough to take a double-track tramway.

This tramway is not of especial importance in isolation, but its group value raises its status owing to the integral part it played in the overall transportation system between quarry and plant. It can be assumed that it was used to transfer limestone from the central quarry area to the crushing plant, from Tramway IM6, and also stone from the eastern quarry to the kiln top, from tramways IM7 and IM8. Though the 1955 map cannot show the fine detail, there must have been a turning mechanism where Tramway IM4 merged with the various branches of Tramway IM6.

Plate 35: View along Tramway IM4

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IM5: U PPER INCLINE PLANE AND IM11 I NCLINE BRIDGE Level of Significance – B (Upper Incline Plane) and C (Incline Bridge) An incline plane rises from a three-way junction with Tramway IM7 at the eastern end of the quarry to run uphill crossing Tramway IM8 on a bridge of rubble limestone construction with iron supporting beams or joists and protective metal railings (Plate 36). The tramway takes a straight course until it reaches the junction at the bottom on the quarry floor. Where it passes the haulage house and sub-station there is a considerable drop on the north side of the incline plane, and this was also subject to slippage as evidenced by crude repairs and buttressing to the steep slope, which reused Jubilee line, metal sheeting and old wooden rail sleepers. The incline plane flattens out beyond Cabin Y to terminate at Terminus Z. Its total length is 220m and width 2.5m, making it a double track.

The Upper Incline Plane and the associated Incline Bridge have a group value as integral elements of the internal transportation system. This incline would have been intended to transfer stone discarded from the quarry and plant area to the easternmost spoil heaps. It is apparent that the bridge and the incline plane below the bridge were only wide enough for a single-track tramway, and the section beyond Cabin Y was also a single track. Though the section in the middle may have been wide enough to take two tracks, it is thought unlikely. Thus, carts would have been hauled up full and then let down empty and, as there is no known evidence for a siding loop near the top, it must follow that the carts were either hauled up one by one or emptied sideways, in which case they would have been Jubilee carts.

It would appear that the eastern part of the quarry was the last to be opened up, meaning that the eastern spoil heaps would have developed later than the central and western spoil heaps, so laying this tramway would have post-dated the rest of the network, even though it was in place by the time the 1922 Ordnance Survey map was surveyed. This contention is supported by the existence of a dismantled bridge over Tramway IM8 on a former and now untraceable incline plane running more or less parallel to the Upper Incline Plane (IM5).

Plate 36: View down the Upper Incline Plane towards the Incline Bridge (IM11)

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IM6 AND IM12: T RAMWAY FROM THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL QUARRY TO THE KILN TOP Level of Significance – B

The co-axial tramway running the length of the quarry (IM12) was connected by Tramway IM6 to the top of the Kiln Bank, running between the western and central spoil heaps. It branched into two tracks at the Drum House (L), with the right-hand branch serving the western part of the quarry and the left-hand the central part. In turn, the left-hand branch again divided into two inside the quarry. Where the right-hand branch passed close to the western spoil heap, slippage of discarded stone on to the tramway track was prevented by construction of a battered dry stone rubble wall that is 1.6m high (Plate 37).

Tramway IM6 was used to transfer limestone from the western and central parts of the quarry to the lime kilns. Whilst the tramway does not have an especially high significance value in isolation, it has a high group value as it played a key role in the site’s operations. The track is no longer visible, although it is likely that elements may survive in-situ beneath the imported soil cover. Confirmation of the presence, condition and extent of any such buried remains could form an objective for future archaeological investigation.

Plate 37: Tramway revetment wall

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IM7, IM8 AND IM10: T RAMWAY FROM THE EASTERN QUARRY TO THE CRUSHING PLANT Level of Significance – B

Two tramways fed the crushing plant with raw stone from the central and eastern parts of the quarry. Tramway IM7 was, from the 1922 OS map, the earlier of the two, as at that time it ran in a direct line almost to the southern face of that part of the quarry, whereas Tramway IM8 was shown as passing beneath the former bridge (IM10) ending at bridge IM11 on the Upper Incline Plane (IM5). Evidence on the ground suggests that Tramway IM8 was extended subsequently across the quarry floor to link with the main co-axial tramway (IM12). At the crushing plant zone, tramways IM7 and IM8 converged into Tramway IM4 so some stone could have been sent down IM7 and IM8 to the kilns, and by the circular loop from IM8 discarded stone could have been sent up Incline Plane IM5. Tramway IM7 was associated with Weigh House P, and Tramway IM8 with probable Weigh House T. The same criteria apply to tramways IM7 and IM8 as to the other components of the tramway/incline plane system so they, too, are accorded a level of significance appropriate to their group value.

Plate 38: Tramway IM7 revetment wall

IM9: C OMPRESSED AIR NETWORK Level of Significance – n/a (nothing survives)

A photograph taken in the 1940s (ARS 2010, Fig 4) shows part of the system of iron piping laid on A-frame stands that would have covered the entire quarried area, taking compressed air from the (unidentified) compressing unit to each section of the working face; drilling prior to blasting was achieved using compressed air. After abandonment of the quarry, the system would have been stripped out. Just one length of pipe, of standard 50mm diameter, can be seen just south of the kiln top on Tramway IM6.

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IM 13: WORKMENS ’ A CCESS PATH

Level of Significance – C

A flight of stone steps situate approximately 20m west of the Rock-cut Shelter (H) affords access up the steep face by the rail siding to a pathway (Plate 39) that zigzags up the spoil infill within old quarry (B) to reach the main quarry level just east of the crushing plant. This would have provided a short cut for workmen between the rail siding level and the upper levels of the site, and it is clearly contemporary with the working of the main quarry. At the top of the flight of steps there is a small squared chamber, internally 500mm by 380mm and open to a depth of 350mm, entirely made of firebrick, stamped THISTLE.

As the chamber’s original purpose cannot now be ascertained, and as it is so small, it is considered to have minimal importance in the overall scheme of operations on site and would be accorded Level D, but the path was an essential link in the movement of people around the site. Without the path and steps, the men would have been faced with a time- consuming walk of 600m along the Rail Siding (IM2) and then up the Lower Incline Plane (IM3) on to the horizontal tramway (IM4). Thus, the path is accorded Level C.

Plate 39: Access path

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IM14: RAILWAY BRIDGE ABUTMENT

Level of Significance – B

Opposite the Rock-cut Shelter (H), 405m east of the coal stocking ground, the rail siding veered north-east over a bridge across the River Wye to join the mainline. This is shown on Ordnace Survey mapping of 1922 and 1938, but not on the 1948 plan. The stone abutments for the bridge over the A6 road and the river are still in-situ ; presumably the actual bridge was of cast-iron and would have been dismantled for salvage when the new link was created. On the quarry side of the road/river the main abutment is 5.2m wide and is composed of mortared coursed stonework (Plate 40), and there is a lower stone-built pillar nearer the road which would have carried a cast-iron tower. When the bridge was taken down, the edge of the abutment was protected by wire strands hung between lengths of Jubilee line set vertically.

Plate 40: Railway bridge abutment

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IM 15: I NCLINE PLANE FROM IM 6 TO TOP OF CENTRAL SPOIL HEAPS

Level of Significance – B

A further incline plane trackbed branched off IM6, and linked with IM4, to curve round up to the top of the central spoil heaps in a gully-like feature (Fig 3). It terminated at the eastern edge of the spoil heap, where cast-iron fragments of the hauling mechanism have survived. Its width indicates that this was a single track. The incline plane has an estimated length of 110m.

For the same reasons as the other elements of the tramway system, this was an integral component and must be accorded the same high status.

Plate 41: Incline Plane IM15

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IM 16: H IGH -LEVEL PATHWAY TO THE POWDER HOUSE

Level of Significance – B

Between the original western quarry hole (A) and the later main quarry a narrow rib of rock was left in place, with vertical drops on either side. This was presumably left to permit access by foot from the main quarry to the Powder House (AA). The path rises up the eastern end of the western spoil heap by a flight of now degraded wooden steps and then runs horizontally for 230m to the fence bounding the western side of the entire site opposite the Powder House. The path is no more than 1.2m wide and had protective fencing along the southern edge above the vertical drop into the main quarry, and for much of its length on both sides (Plate 42). The fence, as elsewhere on the Site, shows adaptive reuse as the fence posts are lengths of Jubilee line with wire strands strung between them.

The pathway was essential for getting black powder from the store to the quarry prior to each blasting operation: without it, the store would have been inaccessible. It is important for this reason alone, but its level of significance is increased because it represents an early health and safety measure designed to protect those whose job it was to carry the powder from the store. Even with the fence in place, the sense of exposure at some points along the path is real.

Plate 42: Pathway to the Powder House

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QUARRY AND SPOIL HEAPS Level of Significance – varies

The first quarrying at Cowdale occurred adjacent to the River Wye at the foot of the natural gorge to create the space needed to lay the standard gauge Rail Siding (IM2) and to erect the kilns and crushed-stone Loading Gantry, as well as to build the Power House (B) and create the coal stocking ground nearby. Stone quarried from within the gorge was no doubt used for building purposes.

Quarrying operations were concentrated at the western end of the site, above the Power House (B) and Cabin D, where a small but deep quarry hole was worked as far back as was technically possible at that time. At the other end of the site, another quarry hole (B) was also opened up early in the Site’s life. These first quarry holes would soon have been abandoned, almost certainly by the time BLF took over the Site, if not sooner, and the main quarry at a higher level, on a par with the kiln top, was progressively opened up working from north to south and out from the centre. Examination of successive Ordnance Survey maps (1921-22, 1938 and 1955) and ground evidence supports the tentative assertion that the western (Plate 43) and eastern parts of the quarry were worked after the central section (Image 60). Furthermore, it is probable, given the height of the working faces, that the main quarry was taken back in, perhaps, two benches rather than in the single bench that is now apparent.

Plate 43: View of the western quarry

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It was the practice in some limestone quarries, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, and especially so in the Yorkshire Dales, to use a method of blasting known as heading blasts (Johnson 2010, 217-20). A broad and high tunnel was driven horizontally into the rock face with a T-shaped tunnel at the inner end. This was filled with powder and the main tunnel was packed with whatever material was available to prevent the blast from shooting out of the tunnel. Heading blasts brought down much more stone than conventional drilling methods. Up to 40,000 tons per blast was not unknown and a single blast provided many months of work for breakers and fillers. Three sources of evidence confirm that Cowdale used this method. Firstly, an undated photograph, probably from the 1930s, taken within the quarry, is captioned ‘Heading crew at Cowdale Quarry’ (permission to reproduce the photo was refused). Secondly, a series of monthly Profit and Loss Accounts for BLF for 1925 breaks down wage costs by job description: each month’s accounts include payments to those men involved in ‘baring and heading drilling’ (DRO D2667/1/Box 78). The barers stripped areas about to be blasted of overlying turf and soil; the drillers bored the tunnels for heading blasts, assuming that term had the same in the 1920s as later. It probably did as there are separate entries for ‘stone getting’: the stone getters drilled holes for powder in traditional forms of blasting. Thirdly, it was reported in a trade journal that a heading blast at Cowdale in July 1931 brought down 60,000 tons which was one of the highest ever blasts (Anon 1930-31, 333). A further report, from 1932, noted a blast of 110,000 tons at BLF’s ‘Black Mill Quarry’ ‘two miles from Buxton (Anon 1932, 32) – in fact this was at East Buxton Quarry at the confluence of Chee Dale and Wye Dale.

Large amounts of spoil were created in all limestone quarries of this period. Some stone was too small to be loaded into the kilns, as small pieces tend to fuse and clump together reducing oxygen flow and thereby preventing full calcining. Some stone would also have contained impurities rendering it suitable neither for calcining nor crushing. All of this waste material had to be disposed of, and thus stockpiles of waste were developed over time in parts of the quarry that had already been worked out. Hence, at Cowdale, all the spoil heaps lie along the northern edge of the quarry. To permit access from quarry to plant, gaps had to be left for the tramway network so here the spoil heaps were developed in three discrete units, referred to here as the western (Plate 44), central, and eastern spoil heaps. The average height of the spoil heaps has been estimated at c 14-20m.

The various quarry faces do not contain any significant features of geological interest, and any future developments in the quarry basin would have little impact, other than visual, on the actual faces themselves. Similarly, every former limestone quarry has extensive spoil heaps and the ones here have nothing that makes them stand out as being worthy of total preservation, other than the eastern spoil heap which has the Upper Incline Plane (IM5) and associated structures Y and Z: this part of the complex does have a high level of significance.

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Plate 44: View of the western spoil heap

STAMPED FIREBRICK

Lying on the ground within the north-western part of the quarry is a single unused firebrick stamped with a manufacturer’s mark – THISTLE C. It was common practice for firebrick manufacturers to stamp code numbers or letters so that end users knew where each variant was to be used, just as masons’ marks were very common on roofing timbers. In this case, ‘Thistle’ was a trade name and ‘C’ was the variant code. ‘Thistle’ was a brand name for brick manufactured by JG Stein in various plants in Central Scotland, at Linlithgow in Lothian, Bonnybridge near Falkirk, and Castlecary near Cumbernauld. Thistle brick had an alumina content of 38 per cent. This single brick hints at long-distance trade links between Cowdale and its suppliers and, by association, customers. It is possible that lime or crushed stone was being despatched to Central Scotland in trains that brought the bricks down on their return journeys.

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3.7 SUMMARY STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

3.7.1 The limeworks and associated structures at Cowdale form a Scheduled Monument, which was designated in 2011. The Site includes a whole range of structures with the most prominent being the lime kiln battery and loading hoppers and gantries below the long-demolished crushing plant. The sheer size of the kiln bank and the fact that, despite it being of outdated technology when built, it was in use until c 1950, make it a highly important element of the site; the scale and constructional form (pre-cast concrete) of the gantries are possibly unparalleled. In terms of the technology used at Cowdale, it makes a useful comparison with other disused quarries in the Buxton area which had Hoffmann continuous kilns or Spencer steel-clad kilns. However, comparatively few former limeworks anywhere in the country have retained their limekilns, and some that have are totally inaccessible or in a very ruinous and dangerous condition.

3.7.2 Within the Buxton-High Peak area, post-1870, 31 commercially-operated limestone quarries have been identified, in addition to Cowdale. Of these, seven are still operational, four are mothballed, and 20 have been permanently decommissioned (Fig 4). Excluding Cowdale, 18 of these quarries had limeworks in the past but only three still produce burnt lime – Hindlow, Brier Low and Tunstead. Of those limeworks that are now defunct, only two sites have intact and publicly accessible kiln batteries, namely Miller’s Dale Quarry and East Buxton Quarry also at Miller’s Dale.

3.7.3 The Cowdale complex also illustrates very well the drive to increase lime production substantially at the end of the nineteenth century and in the 1920s, and the links that were sought by potential lime entrepreneurs to establish themselves on or adjacent to a mainline railway. The obvious investment made in the original complex is impressive, as is that made by BLF when that conglomerate took over the Site in 1909. The pre-Art Deco architecture of the Gatehouse/Office, Power House and Lower Cabin point up the company’s desire to portray the site as a progressive and ground-breaking operation, rather than just as a functional and utilitarian industrial site.

3.7.4 Though several individual Site components do not command a high significance rating, and do not have any particular architectural merit, taken as whole they are of great significance, largely because the site contains a wide range of features and structures that are characteristic of large limestone quarries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Furthermore, the degree of survival of features is impressive, as is the story that can be read by careful examination of each part of the whole complex: adaptive reuse is seen everywhere; chronological phasing of quarrying is clear to see; the integrated internal transportation network can be traced on the ground; and chronological changes of building are apparent in several of the structures. Though the Power House and crushing plant have gone, and the physical remains of the tramway network has either been removed or buried under soil and turf, the site is on the whole complete. The entire story can be told, from blasting the stone through transferring it to kilns or crushing plant, through the generation of power, through features designed to cater for the quarrymen and other workers, through production of quicklime and crushed stone, to how it was despatched off-site.

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3.7.5 There are few quarries anywhere with such levels of survival. Cowdale retains its integrity and cohesion as a prosperous and complex undertaking, and it would be relatively easy to provide the means whereby the average lay person could interpret and understand the site. Many quarries have lost their original features to landfill or later mechanised quarrying or to other industrial developments. Cowdale has retained its features mainly because, apart from the quarry floor, site topography ruled out any other use. Lack of access has protected the quarry floor.

3.7.6 Cowdale’s overall level of significance is also affected positively by its documented history. It compared favourably with other quarries and lime works within the BLF group, ranking among the top five in terms of output and profitability during the period for which data are accessible. It was not a minor player, but an important part of the BLF enterprise.

3.7.7 The site has been closed for 60 years or so, so few people still alive will have any knowledge of it as a working quarry, and post-abandonment vegetation growth across the site makes public access difficult, or even acts as a detractor especially as certain site elements have experienced unsympathetic use ( viz the Loading Gantry, the Lower Cabin and the Gatehouse/Office).

3.7.8 Cowdale Quarry does not have any characteristics that would make it a site of geological significance, and a brief examination of the entire working face noted nothing of particular interest. What is to be seen here can just as easily be seen in the many other accessible quarries and in natural gorges in the limestone Peak District.

3.7.9 Similarly, casual examination of the ecology revealed little of particular note, The quarry floor was covered in imported soil for pasture thereby precluding development of the calcareous vegetation community that would otherwise have matured since abandonment. Natural regeneration of various native tree species on the spoil heaps, including ash, hawthorn, alder, adds to the quarry edge’s biodiversity, but the steep slopes and the entire rail siding area are overrun with dense growth with many rank species. Sycamore infestation is putting several structures at risk, parts of the steeper ground are being colonised by invasive bracken, and even the Lower Incline Plane (IM3) and Access Road (IM1) are being covered with invasive growth of butterbur. A detailed botanical survey would provide useful data on how different habitats within the site are being colonised.

3.8 Detractors

3.8.1 The immediate impression gained on entering the site from the A6 is negative, and the general overgrown state and levels of rubbish and graffiti across the lower part of the site do nothing to change that impression. All the buildings and structures are seriously neglected, and most are in need of remedial work, on varying scales. Several are in danger of collapse. This is an important site, from various angles, but in its current state it does not have a clear or secure future. As noted on the current Heritage At Risk Register for the East Midlands, one of the principal issues facing the Site is the lack of any formal management (http://www.english- heritage.org.uk/publications/har-2012-registers/em-HAR-register-2012).

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3.9 Rarity Value

3.9.1 Cowdale is an integrated site with visible remains of almost every stage in the process of limestone quarrying, lime burning and stone crushing. It contains a rare example of an intact massive-scale vertical lime kiln of traditional design and technology with later massive pre-cast concrete buttressing; a rare example of a pre- cast concrete crushed stone loading gantry system; rare, and possibly unique in a quarry complex, examples of pre-cast concrete buildings with decorative dentilled moulding; and a more or less intact internal transportation network. It is also thought to be the last traditional lime kiln in Derbyshire to have been worked on an industrial scale.

3.9.2 There are numerous disused limestone quarries and limeworks across Britain, but many have been reused for landfill, or have had their earlier features destroyed by modern mechanised quarrying methods, or have simply had disused buildings and plant demolished. There are very few indeed that have retained most of their original components. The Scheduling Notice for Cowdale identified only four scheduled sites of ‘outstanding importance’ in England other than Cowdale:

• The Craven Limeworks in Upper Ribblesdale in the Yorkshire Dales has an intact Hoffmann kiln and the remains of the stone buttressing for a pair of Spencer steel-clad kilns, but has lost many other structures. The quarry was a landfill site for c 30 years, so nothing has survived within it;

• Mealbank Quarry at Ingleton, in the Yorkshire Dales, also has a Hoffmann kiln though it is in a very poor state of repair. There are a few small derelict buildings, three intact buildings with other uses now, but minimal infrastructure in the quarry or limeworks area;

• Amberley Quarry in West Sussex and the Betchworh complex in Surrey have no real relevance to Cowdale given their distance from Derbyshire. 3.9.3 Within the Buxton-Peak Forest area only two other disused quarry/limeworks sites have retained significant structural features: Miller’s Dale Lime Works and East Buxton Lime Works also at Miller’s Dale ( Appendix 4 ). At Miller’s Dale Lime Works the huge kiln battery is intact and in sound condition. It has four bowls, each with its own draw arch with twin eyes set in the rear wall of each (Plate 45). This battery has a loading platform, like Cowdale, and a linear rail siding, but the kiln top is so overgrown with trees it is impossible to make any sense of its configuration. The large quarry (Plate 46) is publicly accessible up the main incline plane and longitudinal tramway bed but, apart from several degraded stone structures, there are no surviving components within the quarry.

3.9.4 The huge concrete-built crushing hoppers and gantries at Miller’s Dale were largely demolished, and what remains is totally overgrown. The whole site is managed as a wildlife reserve by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, and the main emphasis is clearly on nature conservation rather than industrial heritage.

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Plate 45: One of the draw arches at Miller’s Dale Limeworks

Plate 46: Miller’s Dale Quarry

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3.9.5 On the opposite side of the railway viaduct is East Buxton Lime Works, which had a much smaller quarry and lime kiln battery. The linear rail siding loop is fully accessible, as is the quarry, and the kiln battery has been well preserved (Plate 47) and is well presented to the public, lying as it does adjacent to the Monsal Trail along the old mainline rail bed. A Jubilee cart has been set on the circular rails round the two bowl tops, which are accessible, and the single rock-cut draw arch with twin eyes on each side is also fully accessible. This battery was reinforced with pre-cast concrete in the same way as at Cowdale, and possibly more or less at the same time (both sites were part of BLF). No crushing plant has survived.

Plate 47: The East Buxton Limeworks

3.9.6 The Cowdale complex is considered to be almost unique, and that statement stands even when taking Miller’s Dale and East Buxton into account. Only at Cowdale is it possible to build up the total picture of all aspects of production from stone getting through internal transportation to lime burning and stone crushing. Only Cowdale has all the buildings still there, even if many are now degraded. Furthermore, the Cowdale kiln battery is much higher and more complex than either of the Miller’s Dale batteries. The scheduling notification draws attention to several aspects of Cowdale, all of which contribute to its rarity value: • It ‘retains elements of the complete industrial process of lime ( sic ) quarrying and processing within its original, uncompromised layout’; • It has ‘significant remains’ of transport infrastructure and process flows; • It is recognised as one of only five sites of ‘outstanding national importance’; • It forms an ‘important spatial grouping which is rare in a national context’.

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3.9.7 Scheduling is based on five basic criteria, which are all clearly met in the context of Cowdale Quarry: • Survival of site components; • Group value – of components, infrastructure and process flows; • Rarity, • Potential in terms of continuity and change; • Historical documentation.

3.9.8 Prior to scheduling, an assessment for the Monuments Protection Programme graded Cowdale in the Y* category, meaning it was considered to be of ‘clear or outstanding national importance’ (Chitty, 2001, 55).

3.10 Key Values

3.10.1 Industrial and Technological: Cowdale’s lime kiln battery is a very rare example of surviving late nineteenth-century technology still in use into the middle of the twentieth century. With its combination of visible and identifiable buildings and infrastructure components it is also a rare survivor nationally. Those quarries in the Buxton area that had major nineteenth- and early twentieth-century limeworks, such as Harpur Hill, Grinlow, Brier Low, Dowlow, Tunstead and Dove Holes, are now either still operational on a large scale or have been put to other uses after the limeworks complexes were cleared away. It is physically possible at Cowdale to gain access within the two kiln draw arches where the cast-iron eyes are still in place, which enables at least part of the technology of these kilns to be understood. It is certainly possible to interpret the technology involved in the internal transportation system within the site as a whole. If (legal) public access to the various parts of the Site were to be made possible, the task of explaining how it all worked would be relatively simple.

3.10.2 Historical: the Buxton area was arguably the most productive producer of limestone in Britain during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, with a host of quarries large and small selling crushed stone products and quicklime. Cowdale played an important part in this story of enterprise, and it is one of the very few sites where the evidence of pre-mechanised methods is broadly intact, offering considerable potential for public interpretation.

3.10.3 Archaeological: the whole complex also offers considerable potential for archaeological investigation. Whilst large parts of the Site are intact and visible, there are many gaps that only archaeological investigation could shed light on. For example, the grass that now covers the concrete top of the kiln bank may hide detailed evidence of the tramway lines that were used to feed stone and coal to the kiln bowls; many of the smaller buildings are now partly overgrown or filled with collapse debris; the crushing plant gantry system is so overgrown that it is impossible to ‘reconstruct’ it, and clearance with archaeological examination would help answer the many questions posed by the present half-hidden arrangement of structures.

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3.10.4 The two putative weigh houses may well have remains of the weigh bridges in-situ under the turf, and close examination of the incline planes might reveal evidence of track configuration. Removal of turf within the two drum houses would expose more of the iron fittings that were integral to manhandling Jubilee carts from one tramway to another, or from the upline to the downline.

3.10.5 Architectural: clearance within buildings may also reveal details of internal architectural embellishments, such as wall decoration, and door and window fittings. The decorative mouldings and embellishments in the Gatehouse/Office and Lower Cabin would repay examination by an architectural historian who may be able to identify the designer and the motives behind opting for such aesthetic aspects of what in effect were purely functional buildings. Similarly, the engineers responsible for the pre-cast concrete work on the kiln frontage and loading hoppers and gantry may be identifiable by those with the necessary background and skills.

3.10.6 Sociological: it could be argued that Cowdale is just one more disused limestone quarry in the Buxton area with rotting, overgrown and unloved remains. It currently has no legal public access and to most residents of the wider area and certainly to visitors and tourists it is probably an unknown quantity. There is nothing to be seen from the A6 and passers-by on the road or railway can be forgiven for not knowing it is there. Current 1:25,000 OS mapping gives no clue either, apart from labelling it as a disused quarry. De facto access has been physically possible and the amount of accumulated rubbish, the plastic waymarkers and the graffiti on the concrete structures confirm that the Site is being visited. No doubt, too, determined industrial archaeologists will occasionally visit the Site. However, the Site has no amenity value at present which is hardly surprising as there is no permitted public access and safety issues are a real reason to discourage visitors from entering.

3.10.7 It is probable that there are residents in the local area who had relatives working on the Site; and work in other areas, as by this writer in the Yorkshire Dales, has shown that those living today do have an interest in the work their forebears did and in the conditions they endured. Stimulating folk memories and feelings can be a powerful tool in engaging people.

3.11 The Significance of Cowdale as an Asset to Different Groups

3.11.1 The Local Community: Cowdale will not currently be valued by the local community due to the lack of awareness and public access. The general air of neglect and decay would also put most casual visitors off. It has ample potential, although is not currently realised. Whatever value it might have as a wildlife sanctuary is probably outweighed by its wilderness state, but it probably has its own mix of wildlife, including mammals, birds, invertebrates and flowering species, outside those areas overwhelmed by rank vegetation. The site has considerable potential for the local community as an educational resource for industrial and social history, geology and natural history.

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3.11.2 For Buxton schools at all levels it is right on the doorstep which has to be an advantage. Operational quarries in the area do host school parties but such visits, though they are undeniably of benefit, give no indication of what working life was like in a pre-mechanised quarry and limeworks. If it were to be opened up to the public, with consolidation and conservation of various structures and with a designed heritage trail, Cowdale could also act as a further tourist attraction which would have associated benefits for local businesses.

3.11.3 Visitors and Tourists: evidence from disused industrial sites elsewhere in the country has shown that Cowdale could be of interest as a tourist destination. The Peak District has many tourist facilities related to industry, including mining and quarrying, and Cowdale would add to the variety on offer. The two former limeworks complexes at Miller’s Dale have been transformed into a valuable asset as Nature Reserves and Cowdale could, with careful vegetation management, become an equally successful local nature reserve. The lower areas of the complex, along the rail siding, are level and could readily be made accessible for visitors with mobility problems.

3.11.4 The Landowners: in its present state the limeworks and lower parts of the complex must be considered a liability and an underused resource with considerable unrealised potential. It is without doubt a derelict and wasting asset. The right mix of sympathetic development and conservation/public access/interpretation could transform it into an asset with obvious public relations benefits.

3.11.5 Industrial Historians: Cowdale possesses features of national importance with considerable rarity value, and for those with a keen interest in industrial history it is of considerable importance. In some ways it is unique and, if it were promoted in the appropriate way, it has much potential to draw such people in from far and wide.

3.12 Concluding Comment

3.12.1 It is important that the Cowdale site be viewed holistically rather than as a set of disparate and disjointed components. When operational, it was an integrated set of inter-relationships with input, throughput and output flows: coal coming onto site; stone and coal being transferred around and processed on the site; stone from quarry to kilns or crushing plant; waste to the spoil heaps; coal from the stocking ground to the kilns; lime and crushed stone going off site. Each component enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with many other components, and a full understanding of this symbiosis is important in trying to appreciate, and interpret for others, how such a complex site worked, and what today’s visible remains signify.

3.12.2 The remains of Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks undoubtedly represent a heritage asset of considerable archaeological and historical significance. It is also quite clear that the Site is vulnerable to continued deterioration or loss due to a lack of active management and investment, and a regime for managing intrusive vegetation is urgently required. Addressing these issues, coupled with improved public access and interpretation, would represent a significant first step towards securing the removal of the Scheduled Monument from the Heritage At Risk Register.

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4. ISSUES

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 A clear understanding is needed of the issues that have impacted on the significance of the Site in the past, or that may affect the Site and its component parts in the future, to inform meaningful policies for the long-term management and conservation of the Cowdale complex. The issues listed below are considered here in relation to the significance and values of the Site.

4.1.2 The issues can be summarised thus: • possible conflicts between conservation of ecology and industrial history and archaeology; • provision of public access to and within the Site, on-site interpretation; and educational opportunities; • the urgent need for arresting invasive vegetation, and consolidation and conservation of the major standing structures; • vandalism, graffiti and anti-social activities on site; • future development and potential uses of the main quarry area.

4.2 Understanding

4.2.1 The present level of understanding of the full historical, archaeological, and social aspects of the Site is considered adequate for the preparation of this CMP. It has drawn attention to those issues that might impact on the integrity of the site and its component parts, and to mitigation strategies that need to be put in place to ensure long-term survival.

4.2.2 However, there are considerable opportunities to enhance the current understanding of the Site via further archaeological investigation. In particular, targeted archaeological evaluation would usefully establish the extent to which buried remains of the tramway network and the associated incline planes survive, and potentially enable detailed examination of this infrastructure. Investigation of the top of the kiln battery would similarly further an understanding of the Jubilee track system in the heart of the limeworks, whilst targeted excavation near the weigh houses may yield evidence for the actual weigh bridges. Archaeological surveys of the standing structures would also prove invaluable in terms of informing any future consolidation or repair schemes, which will be required ultimately to enable the Scheduled Monument to be removed from the Heritage At Risk Register.

4.2.3 Any such archaeological work would also aid and enhance an interpretation of the Site, thereby contributing to the visitor experience, and developing a greater level of respect for and ‘ownership’ of the Site. Encouraging public awareness and understanding is fundamental to improving a wider appreciation of this important heritage asset. In this respect, opportunities to actively engage local residents and interest groups in archaeological work on the Site could prove to be very rewarding.

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4.3 General Issues

4.3.1 As on many long-disused industrial sites, a careful balance needs to be struck between the consolidation and interpretation of historic structures, coupled with facilitating an appropriate level of public access, and ecological interests. Ecological surveys of the Site will inform future public access to and management of the site as a whole and to individual elements within it. An agreed compromise and balance of needs should be implicit in any future managerial plan. Ecological significance should not be seen as a negative: it could act as a draw to certain elements of the public.

4.3.2 No significant geological characteristics have been identified in any of the exposed rock faces, so this is unlikely to have any bearing on future management of the Site, other than to ensure that all rock faces across the site are stable and unlikely to present hazards to visitors. Any potential weak spots should be managed in the appropriate manner.

4.3.3 Mitigation strategies to consolidate and conserve standing structures require long- term maintenance plans for those structures, as well as ongoing management of invasive vegetation growth. Such strategies will need be in place to remove the Site from the Heritage At Risk Register, which should be a primary objective in the short to medium term. Repair and consolidation of Site components should utilise traditional materials and techniques, for example the use of lime mortar rather than concrete. Industrial structures as seen at Cowdale were constantly subjected to patchwork repairs while in operation, and their conservation should take due cognisance of this. The repair strategy adopted should balance the long-term benefits to those structures with considerations of public needs, access, and safety.

4.3.4 There are clear gaps in knowledge of the Site’s history, development and abandonment. The present lack of archaeological records for below-ground features (known and assumed), if not investigated, could put such features at risk through development. An appropriate scheme of archaeological investigation is considered essential when any groundwork is being undertaken on site, whether for infrastructure or building work or for vegetation clearance. Any such programme of works within the boundary of the designated area would be a requirement of Scheduled Monument Consent.

4.3.5 Research carried out for the compilation of this CMP has identified a substantial body of historical data held at the Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock, which offers some potential for future research of the Site. In particular, a considerable number of files and boxes pertaining to BLF are not catalogued, and it is likely that new information on the operation and infrastructure at Cowdale lies undiscovered amongst this material.

4.4 Access Issues

4.4.1 Access to the Site is currently from the A6 via the Gatehouse, with a small amount of parking afforded by an existing layby. The creation of a dedicated pedestrian walkway from the layby to the site would alleviate the safety concerns of walking on the busy main road.

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4.4.2 To enable visitors to gain a full and enjoyable experience, careful thought should be given to how they would be ‘guided’ through the Site. A heritage trail would enable visitors to build up a full picture of how the Site as a whole and its individual components worked in the long process of converting raw unquarried limestone into burnt lime and crushed stone. Such a trail should incorporate carefully designed and researched interpretation facilities in appropriate spots, and it should be waymarked so as to draw out the most from the Site.

4.5 Nature Conservation Issues

4.5.1 Large-scale intervention is clearly a pre-requisite to conserving Cowdale’s many industrial components; invasive tree growth and root penetration alone are posing a real threat to the long-term stability of some processing and infrastructure Site components. Tree and understorey removal may require some consideration from an ecological perspective. Lime burning produced vast quantities of waste material in the form of lime ashes and small lime (some of which was sold cheaply to farmers), and the crushing plant also generated huge amounts of discarded stone too small to go through the crushers. In addition, waste material of other kinds ended up on the spoil heaps. All this was stockpiled thereby changing pre-existing hydrological, soil and rock conditions across the site, in turn, transforming pre-existing habitats, but also creating completely new habitats slowly colonised by different plants and organisms.

4.5.2 However, given the site’s Scheduled Monument status, and its importance as a surviving major lime burning site, it should follow that whatever integrated long-term management strategy is agreed and adopted should be weighted more highly towards those aspects of the site than towards its ecological aspects. At Miller’s Dale Quarry the emphasis has clearly been on the ecological rather than the industrial, and the lime kiln battery there has an unloved and neglected ambience. That site is a nature reserve where there is a definite imbalance in emphasis between industrial remains and ecology.

4.6 Sustainable Development Issues

4.6.1 The following points should be kept in mind during discussions for the long-term development of the Scheduled Monument: • the most cost-effective sites are those where use has been made of existing soils and materials in mitigation and long-term management strategies; • low-key development generates the lowest practicable ongoing maintenance costs; • passive reclamation involves preserving and promoting the natural floral species and communities that directly reflect underlying soil conditions and the age of the site. Progression of plant communities from bare surface to climax woodland is the natural order of the day so long-term management strategies and policies need to be formulated;

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• active reclamation involves the deliberate introduction of ‘desirable’ (and preferably native) plant species either for aesthetic reasons or for rapid stabilisation of currently unstable slopes such as any spoil heap that will be retained; • management plans should ensure the correct balance between industrial heritage and ecology is maintained for the long term; • for certain areas within the Site, away from important standing structures, the decision should be taken as to whether ‘controlled neglect’ or ‘planned non- intervention’ is the preferred long-term option; • knowledge of the quality as well as the quantity of a given resource is of paramount importance in justifying financial inputs to restoration schemes. There tends to be a general lack of (published) recording of the long-term performance of planting schemes on derelict or abandoned industrial sites and of how vegetation succession proceeds through time. Long time-series of such data can provide the basis for testing the results of experimental work and can stimulate further theoretical work which could lead to the adoption of better techniques for the practical long-term conservation of sites such as Cowdale.

4.7 Conservation or ‘Greening’ Issues

4.7.1 Understandably, perhaps, there is often great pressure to ‘tidy up’ abandoned industrial sites as soon as possible for aesthetic reasons once the decision has been taken to conserve, manage and promote the site for the future. Such enthusiasm for ‘upgrading’ sites, either as tended grassland or ‘natural’ woodland, must be balanced with the key values of preserving existing wildlife habitats and communities.

4.8 Vulnerability of Site Components

4.8.1 Various aspects of Cowdale make the Site as a whole and its component parts highly vulnerable and compromise their long-term future survival: • hitherto there has been no maintenance programme in place for standing structures or woodland management, and invasive growth and root penetration put many of the surviving structures at severe risk; • visible graffiti on several of the structures, and anti-social uses by unauthorised persons, notably in the loading gantries and Gatehouse/Office block, are visually chaotic and detract from the value of the Site; • until firm decisions are taken about the future of the Site, all structures will remain at risk of continued decay and ultimate collapse; • unless managed carefully, there could be conflicts between archaeological/historical and ecological interests.

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4.8.2 Large-scale development around the limeworks and crushing plant sites and the rail siding and incline planes would inevitably have an impact on the overall character of Cowdale. This may have several implications:

• access lines within the Site, if hard-surfaced with non-native materials and with excessive signage, could give it the appearance of a municipal park, out of keeping with its location and surroundings. The ways in which Grinlow Quarry has been transformed from a working limeworks to a Country Park and caravan site, with extensive areas of tarmac, obtrusive public toilets and office-reception block and litter bins, and excessive signage, provide a case in point where the original characteristics of the Site have been subsumed within an almost suburban creation and have had their original integrity severely compromised; • without careful planning and control, there would be the risk of losing hidden archaeological features if the Site is tidied up and transformed too rigorously; • careful planning and control is also a pre-requisite for ensuring that standing structures are not compromised by the use of modern and inappropriate building materials; • if public access is to be provided to the kiln battery and crushing plant complex, careful consideration must be given to ensuring that the structures are made safe for visitors to gain access without overuse of obtrusive guard rails, warning notices and such like which would inevitably compromise the integrity of the structures and harm their visual impact. A balance is needed; • careful thought needs to be given to access routes onto the site, with a view to avoiding overloading the original limeworks with modernity and ‘clutter’.

4.8.3 If future development and promotion are to be kept at a low level, many of the points made in the previous section would not apply, but they would be replaced by a different set of issues:

• a programme of minimum development would necessarily entail minimal consolidation and conservation work on standing structures which would not necessarily be to their long-term stability or security; • if the inherent qualities and value of the industrial Site as a whole are not kept at the forefront during the design stage of any development, it is possible that irreversible harm to the standing structures and transportation infrastructure would ensue, with a consequent loss of value of the Site as a whole;

4.8.4 Cowdale can be viewed and appreciated as a whole or as a collection of individual components. It is axiomatic that the lime kiln battery alone has great historical value and hidden social and entrepreneurial value, but it should be remembered that the landscape value of the site in its entirety is a reality; if development is not conceived holistically, then that value could be compromised irreversibly.

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4.9 Potential Uses of the Site

4.9.1 Appropriate uses of the Site are discussed in Section 5 below. It is perhaps worth stating, however, that a stereotypical ‘municipal park’ approach, with carefully tended lawns and flower beds, tarmac paths, obtrusive signage, park benches and such like liberally scattered through the site, is considered totally inappropriate. Such an approach would not reflect the original industrial and ‘working class’ nature of the site, or its intensive bustle of noise, dust, smoke and fumes. It would resemble a sterile urban park. It would be very expensive to maintain and would have a negative impact on wildlife. Unless it were regularly monitored and patrolled, vandalism could result, but the costs of providing such on-site staffing would be prohibitive. Similarly, attempts to createg a ‘designed’ artificial landscape within the processing parts of the Site should be avoided. It was an industrial complex, and would have been untidy throughout its operational life.

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5. POLICIES

5.1 Introduction

5.1.1 This section outlines a range of policies that can be used to inform options for the proposed development and subsequent long-term management of the Site. It concerns the Scheduled Area as well as the contiguous areas that formed part of the working limeworks and crushing plant complexes, together with those infrastructure components that were integral to the Site’s operation. The policies discussed in this section should not be read as firm recommendations, as that is not the purpose of a CMP. Use of the term ‘Site’ throughout this section refers to the area defined above.

5.1.2 Some of the policies presented below have been devised with a view to the long-term management of the Scheduled Monument. The mechanisms and associated funding that will be required to implement some of these policies will undoubtedly be the subject of future discussions. One option to secure the long-term conservation and interpretation of the site, for instance, may involve the creation of a Heritage Trust or Building Preservation Trust. There are currently some 180 such organisations around England dedicated specifically to rescuing historic buildings and sites. Several of these have been established with the principal objective of securing programmes of work for the repair and consolidation of former industrial sites, including Murrays’ Mills in Ancoats, the Dewars Lane Granary in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and several sites in the Derwent Valley.

5.1.3 In the short- to medium-term, however, there is a need at Cowdale Quarry and Limeworks to progress a basic scheme of site management, coupled with improved public access and interpretation. This would provide an essential first step towards addressing the ongoing deterioration of the Scheduled Monument, and securing its ultimate removal from the Heritage At Risk Register.

5.2 Initial Option

5.2.1 In the short- to medium-term, the site could be managed as a nature reserve with major standing structures consolidated as they stand. Arresting and managing intrusive vegetation growth across the Scheduled Monument would be a valuable achievement. This could be coupled with minimal interpretation and signage, although colour-coded waymarkers could guide visitors on a route that would be easy to follow. Interpretation could be provided in the form of fixed panels at key points, enabling visitors to build up in a limited way how the site functioned and what role each of the major components had. Access routes would not necessarily be maintained at a high standard, or made usable by those with mobility problems. No visitor facilities would be provided, and access onto the Site would be on foot from the existing roadside layby. The advantage of adopting this option is that it would be low-cost and easy to achieve, and would require minimal long-term management and intervention. It could be completed quickly. It would be wildlife-friendly, and would have negligible impact on buried archaeological remains.

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5.2.2 A parallel for this would be Miller’s Dale Quarry and Limeworks, adjacent to the Monsal Trail, where the base of the kiln battery is relatively easily accessible, though not for those with mobility problems. The kiln top is inaccessible, and only the more adventurous would venture up the rough path that now follows the main incline plane into the quarry. Similarly, at the East Buxton Quarry and Limeworks, the kiln battery has been conserved and made accessible, and its proximity to the Monsal Trail means those with mobility problems can see it at close range. A path has been created up the incline plane to the kiln top which has been restored (though the bowls are capped) with the rail lines and a Jubilee cart placed on them. A path wends its way through part of the quarry.

5.3 Management

5.3.1 No specific management proposals are detailed in this CMP, as it is essential that the opportunities and limitations of the Site are identified and fully described and argued in an Options Appraisal process, drawing on and taking forward the option described above.

5.4 Policy 1: Understanding of the Site

5.4.1 For visitors to be able to fully understand and appreciate how the site as a whole functioned, on-site interpretation will be a necessary element of any development. It should be designed to enhance the visitor experience rather than to detract from it so interpretation panels should be sited carefully and should be non-intrusive. They should be designed to avoid sites of known or potential archaeological significance unless, for the latter, a prior mitigation exercise is undertaken.

5.4.2 Opportunities for research into the working of the quarry and limeworks should be incorporated into any development strategy. Though limited archival research has been carried out for this CMP, there are many other possibilities for further discovery and this should be promoted among any members of the local community who might enjoy and benefit from conducting serious research, including oral surveys of those who may have worked here. Open Days, prior to development, would aid in disseminating what is already known about the site thereby increasing peoples’ level of understanding of the site, and this could lead to offers from those present to undertake targeted research, particularly in the County Record Office in Matlock.

5.4.3 A Site archive should be compiled and established in a place with easy public access for researchers and other interested parties. The archive should be well referenced and capable of receiving data and information in the future.

POLICY 1: A programme of archival and oral research should be implemented to gather more information about the history of the quarry and limeworks, with the ultimate aim of compiling a publicly accessible archive.

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5.5 Policy 2: Archaeology

5.5.1 No intrusive archaeological investigations have been carried out at Cowdale, although non-intrusive surveys and assessments were undertaken by ARS Ltd in 2010 and for this CMP.

5.5.2 Apart from major Site components, notably the Kiln Bank, Crushing Plant Gantries, Lower Cabin and Gatehouse/Office block, most of the standing structures have either collapsed or partially decayed or were blown up after abandonment of the complex. Rubble spreads tend to mask details within many of the structures. The rail siding, lower and upper incline planes, and horizontal tramway beds have no obvious features of detail visible on the surface owing to grass or other vegetation growth. As a result, there are many aspects of the Site that cannot presently be understood fully and targeted invasive archaeological examination would add much to the understanding of the Site. In addition, detailed surveys of standing structures following on from clearance of rubble and debris from within them would also be of great benefit to full understanding of the Site.

POLICY 2: A programme of detailed and targeted archaeological surveying and excavation should be implemented prior to any physical development taking place.

5.6 Policy 3: Ecology

5.6.1 Most of the Scheduled Monument, and the contiguous areas along the rail siding, have been out of use and largely undisturbed for six decades, the Site having been abandoned around 1954. The main quarry floor, including that within the Scheduled Area, was covered with topsoil to create pasture for sheep and cattle grazing.

5.6.2 Physical and chemical changes to the pre-existing environment during the Site’s operational period brought about a new set of conditions within which a range of ecological habitats formed. Since abandonment, the Site has enjoyed a 60-year period during which these new habitats and micro-habitats have become more established. Some of these will be of undoubted ecological value though others have promoted the spread of vigorous species such as sycamore, bracken and butterbur.

5.6.3 A strategy should be developed in order to maintain and manage those habitats and life systems that are of ecological value, and to prevent unnecessary damage that could occur during the development phase of any adopted plan. Any conflicts that might arise between the industrial archaeology/history and the ecology of the Site should be identified and resolved at an early stage in planning groundworks and development. Such conflicts are known from similar sites elsewhere, and tend to be of a sensitive nature, but it should not be assumed that they will be inevitable.

5.6.4 The High Peak District Council’s Environmental Policy document states that one of its primary aims for the future is to ‘manage sites to encourage biodiversity and develop habitat’ (www.highpeak.gov.uk/council-services/energy-and-climate- change/our-environmental-policy). The Council is currently formulating its Local Plan: enshrined within it, as Strategic Policy 3, is the protection and enhancement of the natural and historic environment though the emphasis appears, so far, to be on biodiversity and the improvement of habitats of ‘nature conservation value’.

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5.6.5 The Plan wishes to promote more effective management of land within the district. Management of Cowdale’s wooded areas for biodiversity and conservation would sit well within the ethos of Council policy.

5.6.6 It could be built into any development plan for the Site that certain areas will be set aside for nature conservation, such as on the steeper slopes and rock faces away from standing structures and infrastructure components, though the balance between nature conservation and conservation of historical structures should be firmly in favour of the latter at Cowdale.

5.6.7 Activities in the past have created a landscape at variance with Cowdale’s improved agricultural surroundings. Many natural conditions have been altered by quarrying and lime burning, such as slope angles and heights, soil structure and characteristics, pH values, hydrological flows and levels of erosion and deposition and they have together influenced the character of the Site’s ecological diversity as seen today.

5.6.8 The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust manages nature reserves at Miller’s Dale and East Buxton Quarries, and could be approached for expert help in formulating a long-term strategy and initial management regime.

POLICY 3: A programme of ecological surveying should be implemented prior to any physical development work, to include surveys of habitats, flora, mammals (including bats), birds, butterflies and invertebrates.

5.7 Policies 4 – 8: Conservation and repair

5.7.1 Whatever programme of consolidation and restoration is adopted for the Site and its component parts should be designed to ensure that their integrity and significance are in no way compromised by the use of inappropriate materials and techniques, or by undertaking renovations and reconstruction beyond the remit of what is known from historical or archaeological sources. Materials used should conform to those originally employed on the structures when they were built.

5.7.2 Any repair, consolidation or restoration work, or alterations, now or in the future, should accord with the best conservation philosophy and with industry best practice. Any appointed management team or steering group should ensure that appropriate specialist advice is obtained.

POLICY 4: Structures and buildings with historical provenance and significance should be repaired, consolidated or restored in a manner that reflects their significance without adversely affecting their historical integrity. All structures and buildings should be assessed to inform their appropriate conservation needs and future management procedures.

POLICY 5: A long-term inspection and maintenance programme should be put in place prior to any development programme being implemented.

POLICY 6: Detailed and specific guidance should be provided for any consultants and contractors involved in development of the Site.

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POLICY 7: Any adopted development scheme for the Site should aim to provide a safe and attractive environment for the visitor, enhancing the visitor experience, without negatively impacting on the character of the Site.

POLICY 8: Full and detailed operational guidelines should be drawn up and provided to any future occupiers and business users of the Site.

5.8 Policy 9: Statutory considerations

5.8.1 English Heritage should be consulted at an early stage concerning any proposed changes to the Site and its component parts, including any proposed repairs, consolidation or restoration work. As the Site has Scheduled Monument status a layer of negotiations and consents will need to be secured.

5.8.2 Due account should also be taken of the heritage status of the Site and its structures during the interpretation and implementation of regulations relevant to the design, repair, consolidation, restoration or construction stages, and due regard given to visitor health and safety issues on or around standing structures. It will be essential to make early contact with local authority planning and archaeological conservation teams to ensure the requisite planning consents and requirements are kept in mind and adhered to.

POLICY 9: English Heritage, the Development Control Archaeologist for Derbyshire County Council, and (possibly) Natural England should be consulted at an early stage to ensure compliance with statutory obligations.

5.9 Policy 10: Implementation

5.9.1 This Conservation Management Plan should be made available to and consulted by all actual and potential stakeholders when any development plan is considered. The Plan has been produced to allow informed decisions to be made in this respect.

5.9.2 A CMP should be perceived as a ‘live’ document capable of having any new data or information or concepts added to it.

POLICY 10: The Conservation Management Plan should be formally accepted and endorsed by the Site owners and direct stakeholders, and should enjoy the full support of all stakeholders. It should be periodically reviewed and updated.

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6. IMPLEMENTATION AND REVIEW

6.1 The aims and policies set out in this CMP should be furthered and achieved by means of an Options Appraisal to look in detail at possible future scenarios, with estimated costings, benefits and disbenefits, practical considerations and implications. Such scenarios should be conceived, designed and brought to fruition within the framework established by this CMP.

6.2 Implementing of this Plan, and taking it forward through a full Options Appraisal procedure, will require the full support of the Site owners and backers, and other stakeholders. Organisations and individuals that should be kept informed and consulted, and which it is hoped will endorse the Plan, include:

• King Sterndale Parish Council;

• High Peak Borough Council;

• Derbyshire County Council Archaeology Service;

• English Heritage;

• Derbyshire Wildlife Trust;

• National Stone Centre, Wirksworth;

• Peak District National Park Authority;

• Local landowners and residents of Staden and Cowdale Buxton business community.

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7. REFERENCES

Abbreviations

DRO Derbyshire Record Office

TNA The National Archives

Primary Sources

DRO.D2667/1/Box 24/13. Map of Quarries in the Buxton-Peak Forest area. August 1945

DRO.D2667/1/Box 24/15. Plan of Active Limestone Quarries 1951.

DRO.D2667/1/Box26/1. Bundle. The Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. Accounts 1911- 1923

DRO.D2667/1/Box 78. Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. Statistics. January to December 1925

DRO.D504/167/2. The Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. List of businesses in the hands of Messrs Brooke Taylor & Company (solicitors), 1 May 1924

DRO.D504/167/6/14. The Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. North Derbyshire Area. Report re output and suggested extension of works. 1921

DRO.D504/167/12. Plan of businesses of the Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited 1920-26

DRO.D504/167/15/6. Land at Staden 1920

DRO.D504/167/16/2. Mrs Sarah Ashton and others to The New Lime Company Ltd Buxton. Lease of Lime S tone Quarries and land at Cowdale near Buxton in the County of Derby. 2 November 1900

DRO.D504/167/16/7. F.S.Goodwin, Esq. to the Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. Lease of Quarries at Cowdale, near Buxton, in the County of Derby, 1924

TNA.BT31/31260/35063. The Buxton Lime Firms Company Limited. Memorandum and Articles of Association, 28 October 1891.

TNA.BT31/4184/27058/1. The Old Buxton Lime Company Ltd.

Cartographic Sources

Ordnance Survey 1879-80

Ordnance Survey 1898

Ordnance Survey 1921-22

Ordnance Survey 1955

Ordnance Survey 1973

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Trade Directories

Kelly’s Directory of Derbyshire. 1881, 1887, 1899, 1906.

Post Office Directory of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutlandshire. 1848

Secondary Sources

Anon, 1930-31 ‘Heading blast at Cowdale July 1931’. Cement, Lime and Gravel , 5, 333

Anon, 1932 The Quarry and Roadmaking , 37 , 32

ARS. 2010 An archaeological desk-based assessment and buildings appraisal of Cowdale Quarry, Buxton, Derbyshire , Archaeological Research Services Ltd Report No. 2010/34

Barnatt, J. and Dickson, A, 2004 ‘Survey and interpretation of a limekiln complex at Peak Forest, Derbyshire: and a review of early limeburning in the north-west Peak’ Derbyshire Archaeological Journal , 124 , 141-215

Boden, PK, 1960 ‘The limestone quarrying industry of North Derbyshire’ Geographical Journal , 129 (1), 53-63

Briggs, J, 1883 ‘Kilns for burning limestone’. Letters Patent No. 4876

Chitty, G. 2001. Lime Cement and Plaster Industries Step 4 Report . English Heritage Monuments Protection Programme

English Heritage, 1997 Monuments Protection Programme Site Assessment. Cowdale Limeworks Site Assessment , unpubl rep

English Heritage. 2008 Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance , London

English Heritage. 2011 Advice Report 05 September 2011. Cowdale Quarry limestone extraction and processing site 540m north east of Staden Manor. Case no. 462592

Granada Convention. 2001 Convention for the protection of the architectural heritage of Europe

Gunn, J. 2010 A comparison between Cowdale Quarry and other former limestone quarries in the Buxton area. Unpublished report, LRC Rept 2010/14

Heritage Lottery Fund. 2012 Conservation Plan guidance

HMG. 2011 Natural capital: supporting evidence and analysis to the Natural Environment White Paper

ICOMOS-Australia. 1999 Burra Charter. International Council on Monuments and Sites

Jackson, L, 1950 ‘The Buxton lime trade’ Cement, Lime and Gravel , 25 (5), 186-94

Johnson, D, 2002 ‘Friedrich Edouard Hoffmann and the invention of continuous kiln technology: the archaeology of the Hoffmann kiln and 19th-century industrial development’. (Part 1). Industrial Archaeology Review , XXIV (2), 119-32

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Johnson, D, 2003 ‘Friedrich Edouard Hoffmann and the invention of continuous kiln technology: the archaeology of the Hoffmann kiln and 19th-century industrial development’. (Part 2). Industrial Archaeology Review , XXV (1), 15-29

Johnson, D, 2006 ‘Foredale Quarry, Helwith Bridge, a historical and archaeological survey’. British Mining Memoirs , 80 , 111-34

Johnson, D, 2010 Limestone industries of the Yorkshire Dales , Stroud

Jubb Consulting Engineers, 2010 Structural assessment of gatehouse 1 and 2, the powerhouse, the kilns and loading hoppers at Cowdale Quarry, Buxton. Unpublished report for Express Park Buxton Ltd, Report no. P9362-Rep_01

Spencer, PW, 1870 ‘Specification of Peter William Spencer. Lime kilns, &c’. Letters Patent No. 767

Spencer, PW, 1894. ‘Provisional specification. Improvements in kilns for burning or calcining limestone or like substances’. Letters Patent No. 16,043

Valetta Convention, 1985 European convention on the protection of the archaeological heritage

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Appendix 1: Scheduled Monument Description

English Heritage Monument No: 1546192

Reason for Designation: Cowdale Quarry limestone extraction and processing works, 540m north-east of Staden Manor, Derbyshire is a scheduled monument. The site is of national importance for the following principal reasons: • Survival: the monument survives particularly well and retains elements of the complete industrial process of lime quarrying and processing, within its original, uncompromised setting; • Group Value: the survival of the buildings, elements of the transport infrastructure and process flows of the industry are nationally important both as a spatial grouping and from a time depth perspective; • Rarity: Cowdale is one of only five sites recognised as being of outstanding national importance because of the rare survival of certain building types and for the completeness and diversity of surviving features; • Potential: the site retains archaeological potential both within and between the standing structures. Earthworks indicate the survival of buried deposits and ruinous structures provide an insight into the continuity and change in the use and development of the complex as a whole; • Historical documentation: considerable historical documentation is available providing a comprehensive record of the site and the companies involved in its development and function.

History: the Carboniferous Limestone beds around Buxton have been subjected to widespread extraction and processing since post-medieval times. In the mid-C18 production was industrialised, a process which was aided, in the Wye Gorge, by the building of the Midland Railway line in the 1860s. The earliest recorded workings at Cowdale were in 1870 when, it is understood, the kilns were built, although there is some debate as to whether they were built later in the C19. The quarry did not appear on Ordnance Survey (OS) maps until the early-C20, and a railway link to the quarry first appears on the 1924 OS map, but the industrial complex had been enlarged and extended around the railway by 1909 by Buxton Lime Firms. The Power House, gate houses, entrance buildings and subsidiary structures were added to the site at this time, positioned on graduated terraces cut into the rock face. The quarry finally closed in 1954 when it was understood to be the last site to use traditional, coal-fired shaft kilns in Derbyshire. The particularly pure limestone in the vicinity of Buxton makes quarrying an important industry still.

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Description: the monument is approached from the west through a double entrance; a wide gateway for vehicular access with an adjacent pedestrian entrance. The pedestrian entrance is constructed of reinforced cast concrete with dentilled decoration across the lintel. This motif is common throughout the complex and typologically dates these elements of the site to the 1909 expansion. The track way climbs to the east with a stone-built wall marking the northern edge and the southern side by a cast concrete retaining wall. Approximately 24m east of the entrance and immediately adjacent to the track is a gate house, constructed in reinforced, cast concrete. It is rectangular in plan, three bays wide and built against the rock face, with a flat, concrete slab roof. Tapering buttresses define the corners of the building as well as the individual bays, and reach to the dentilled eaves and roof. The central bay, with a door and single window opening, is flanked by three vertically-proportioned window openings in the bays either side. The dentilled decoration above the door and window openings runs as a single course across the front and around the sides of the building. A small open portico extends from the western end of the building, with tapering buttresses supporting a single slab roof. Internally, the rendered concrete construction incorporates concrete beams and brick piers which partition the internal space into three bays with a central 'reception' area and rooms either side. A series of door openings provide an open passage along the width of the back wall giving access to each room. None of the doors or window glass survives.

Following the track eastwards it continues to rise until it meets a second terrace running east to west. Starting at the western end of the terrace is the site of the Power House, this was an imposing building constructed in reinforced cast concrete as part of the 1909 expansion. It was built against the rock face, and sat directly behind and above the gate house, but was a larger, more prominent and distinct building that replicated the powerful architectural style. The Power House was demolished in May 2011. It was rectangular in plan, with a single- storey wing either side of a two-storey central tower. The tower was both imposing and impressive with tapering buttresses on each corner reaching to the flat roof. A central doorway was subtly decorated with a dentilled lintel but displayed tapering door jambs of temple-like proportions. Above the door a cast-concrete date plaque read 'BLF 1909 TR' in recognition of the Buxton Lime Firms who were responsible for the development and running of the quarry at this time. The architectural style was distinctive and gave the impression of strength and wealth. The Power House would have been a dominant feature of the landscape, clearly visible from both road and rail when built in 1909.

Inside the Power House was a single, open room with a central row of steel columns running east to west supporting steel beams above. The flat roof slabs were supported by steel reinforcements encased in concrete. Against the back wall was a cast-concrete casing with a semi-circular shaped impression in the top indicating the site of a tank, presumably for water, and part of the power source for which the Power House was built.

Approximately 109m east of the site of the former Power House is a second gate house, constructed in reinforced, cast concrete and brick. The single-storey gate house is rectangular in plan, built against the rock face, with a flat, concrete slab roof and a short, single stack at the eastern end. The building sits on a triangular-shaped terrace, supported by a retaining wall and has an entrance at each end, both of which are approached from the southern side. That to the west is a double doorway but is half obscured by soil and stone which has slipped from above and accumulated on the terrace. The main north façade is three bays wide with two horizontally proportioned, slightly recessed window openings within each.

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Tapering buttresses define the corners of the building as well as the individual bays and reach to the roof. Dentilled decoration above the window openings mirrors that found on both gate house one and the former Power House and is typologically associated with the 1909 phase of the industrial complex. The tapering buttresses throughout give the distinct impression of strength and power and are of a style which has Art Deco overtones but some 15 years earlier than the height of the movement. The architectural style is distinctive and is repeated at various scales throughout the site.

Internally, the rendered concrete and brick construction incorporates concrete beams and brick piers which partition the internal space into two compartments: a single room which runs the length of the building and a parallel, narrow corridor to the rear. Along the full length of the back wall of the corridor is a concrete ledge or bench suggesting it was used as a waiting area. The latter is accessible from both the double eastern entrance and that at the western end. None of the doors or window glass survives.

Approximately 95m east of the second gate house is the bank of four draw kilns. These large stone-built kilns are rectangular in plan and stand to approximately 16m above the former track bed of the railway sidings. Reinforced concrete flying buttresses support the northern side of the kilns, reaching from the track bed to the top of the shafts. These were added to the kilns in 1931 to offer support on the northern, and down slope, side of the structure. The four kilns are served by two, brick-lined, drawing arches at their base, within each of which are four recesses each containing a large hopper. The rear wall of each arch comprises the exposed rock face. The draw kilns were continuously run with fuel and stone, loaded in alternate layers from the top and the finished lime drawn periodically from the base. The circular tops of the shafts are visible at the ground surface above the kilns but have been capped in concrete. The incline plane and Drum House were constructed just south of the kilns to, amongst other things, draw fuel up from the entrance to the site, to the top of the kilns. The kilns continued in use until 1954 when the site finally closed down.

A further 140m east of the kilns is a large concrete structure retaining loading hoppers, pulleys and wheels which appear to relate to a lifting mechanism. Standing to a similar height to the kilns, the structure recedes into the rock face as it tapers back towards the top. It now survives as a ruin but the building is shown on photographs from the 1930s as a roofed structure. Again railway sidings formerly passed under parts of the building to serve the loading shutes which are at approximately first floor height. Sections of track are evident, scattered around this part of the site.

Another c100m east of the loading hoppers is a rock-cut cave with a stone-built blast wall, surviving up to a height of approximately 1m, constructed across the entrance. The rounded, arched opening into the cave leads into a single cell, rough cut from a protruding rock face. This fuel or Powder House is a rare survival of this building type.

The east-west terrace along which all these structures were built represents the railway track bed which served the Power House at the most western extent, and linked to the Midland Railway, Buxton Branch line to the east, a distance in total of approximately 766m. Although much of the track has been removed, there is evidence of track and sleepers protruding from the ground at various points along this length, particularly around the area of the kilns and loading hoppers. Here, sidings branched from the main track to allow trucks to get closer to the buildings.

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Approximately 53m east of the former Power House the track bed divides; the main track continues on a relatively level gradient to the east while a narrower, side track leads off to the south-east on a steep gradient towards the quarry face. Continuing along the east-west terrace, sections of stone and concrete retaining wall support the rock cut terrace on the southern side. Blocked entrances and small ruined structures along the line of the wall indicate both the continuity and change in the layout and use of the site probably from the mid-late-C19 onwards.

The side track leading off from the main rail track is the line of the incline plane which served the upper levels of the kilns, crushing area and quarry floor. The Drum House, which housed the winding drum for the incline, survives at the top of the incline as a ruined structure with the base plates for winding gear evident on the ground surface. Other supporting structures are situated at the head of the incline plane and survive as ruined structures and buried features, evident as earthworks. Side tracks are documented extending from the incline to serve individual subsidiary structures and to continue to the top of the spoil heaps. At the eastern end of the monument, a network of track beds interlink, crossing to and from the quarry floor and spoil heaps.

Boundary of the Scheduled Monument

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Appendix 2: Cowdale Quarry Photographic Index

Image Direction Ref. Feature Brief Description No. Code 1 SSE A Gatehouse/Office Entrance gateway and portal 2 SSE A Gatehouse/Office Detail of gateway and portal 3 WNW A Gatehouse/Office Gatehouse and site office, front elevation 4 WNW A Gatehouse/Office Detail of front elevation 5 S A Gatehouse/Office Gatehouse and site office 6 NW A Gatehouse/Office Interior view, looking west 7 SE A Gatehouse/Office Interior view, looking east 8 S A Gatehouse/Office Open-roofed structure above the office block 9 SW A Gatehouse/Office Detail of open-roofed structure 10 NNE A Gatehouse/Office Twin circular aperture at east end 11 A Gatehouse/Office Detail of twin circular aperture 12 NE A Gatehouse/Office concrete plinth at west end of office block roof 13 NW B Power House Rubble pile from demolition 14 NW B Power House Demolition rubble 15 B Power House Close-up of reused firebrick 16 NW IM1 Access Roadway View downslope to gateway/office block 17 WNW IM2 Standard-gauge rail bed View along rail bed across coal stocking ground 18 SE IM2 Standard-gauge rail bed View east along rail bed from coal stocking 19 ESE IM3 Lower Incline View up lower incline with upper cabin on right 20 IM3 Lower Incline Close-up of Jubilee rail line re-used as fencing 21 SSE IM3 Lower Incline Stone revetment on upper side of lower incline 22 SSE IM3 Lower Incline Brick above reused firebrick revetment wall 23 NW IM2 Standard-gauge rail bed Timber edging to lower edge of track bed 24 SSE IM2 Lower Incline Brick revetment wall to upper edge of track bed 25 SE C Lower Cabin Front elevation above revetment wall to rail bed 26 W C Lower Cabin ditto 27 ESE C Lower Cabin on roof of lower cabin 28 C Lower Cabin Brick surround to circular hole through roof 29 C Lower Cabin Brick surround to west-central hole 30 C Lower Cabin Brick surround to east-central hole 31 C Lower Cabin Concrete plinth for surround at east end of roof 32 S C Lower Cabin Front elevation showing decorative moulding 33 ESE C Lower Cabin Interior of west cell 34 W C Lower Cabin Doorway and interior of west cell 35 SE C Lower Cabin North-west gable with doorways to west cell 36 SSE D Upper Cabin Upper Cabin, showing window sill 37 W D Upper Cabin Interior looking west 38 NNW D Upper Cabin Mature sycamore tree pushing in west gable 39 SSE K Stone Revetment Section of revetment wall to Lower Incline 40 NW IM3 Lower Incline View downslope past feature IM3

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Image Direction Ref. Feature Brief Description No. Code 41 SE IM3 Lower Incline View upslope to kiln top (through gates) 42 E F Lime kiln bank West face of kiln battery 43 ENE F Lime kiln bank West face of kiln battery 44 NW F Lime kiln bank Protective iron railing on kiln parapet 45 SSE F Lime kiln bank Concrete cap to west bowl 46 E L Drum House Surviving structure, with capped east bowl 47 W IM3 Lower Incline View from kiln top to Lower Incline 48 W L Drum House Linear firebrick-lined pit with iron fixings 49 L Drum House Detail of iron fixing 50 E L Drum House Fixing mounts for incline winding drum 51 N L Drum House South elevation with kiln parapet beyond 52 S IM6 Tramway bed View along tramway into the quarry 53 SW IM6 Tramway bed Revetment wall on upper side of tramway 54 N IM9 Compressed air pipe Length of pipe ex-situ with kiln top beyond 55 ESE SW West spoilheap 56 N M Cabin Demolished brick structure 57 N M Cabin Demolished brick structure 58 WNW WQ West quarry face View across the quarry floor 59 S WQ South-west quarry face View across the quarry floor 60 SE CQ South-east quarry face View across the quarry floor 61 WQ Firebrick in west quarry Stamped 'THISTLE C' 62 N N Rock-cut shelter North face of west quarry, with protective wall 63 N N Rock-cut shelter North face of west quarry, with protective wall 64 N N Rock-cut shelter North face of west quarry, with protective wall 65 N WQ North-west quarry face View across quarry floor 66 E EQ North-east spoilheaps View across quarry floor 67 WNW WQ Stone pile in west quarry Last firing in this part of the quarry(?) 68 S E Niche in revetment wall North side of main rail track 69 SSE E Niche in revetment wall North side of main rail track 70 SSE F Kiln Battery Concrete buttressing to front wall 71 SSE F Kiln Battery Concrete buttressing to front wall 72 S F Kiln Battery Concrete buttressing to front wall 73 ESE F Kiln Battery Access steps to rail loading platform Kiln Battery East end of loading platform with butt join of 74 W F stone face andconcrete Kiln Battery East end of the front face showing original 75 S F limestone quoins and failure 76 E IM2 Standard-gauge rail bed Double-track bed to east of kiln battery West draw-hole opening, brick above limestone 77 S F Kiln Battery quoins 78 S F Kiln Battery Interior of west draw-hole opening 79 S F Kiln Battery Twin cast-iron drawing eyes in west DHO Lineside Cabin Stone-built linesmen's cabin at junction of main 80 NW I line and sidings

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Image Direction Ref. Feature Brief Description No. Code 81 E J Gateway to sidings Timber gateposts where siding leaves main line 82 SW H Rock-cut Shelter In quarried face alongside rail bed 83 WSW H Rock-cut Shelter Protective wall in front of shelter 84 S H Rock-cut Shelter Narrow entrance to ditto Crushed-stone plant Massive buttressing, stone in lowest tier, 85 SSW G concrete in middle and upper 86 G Crushed-stone plant Detail of rail loading mechanism 87 N G Crushed-stone plant Detail of rail loading mechanism 88 G Crushed-stone plant Detail of rail loading mechanism 89 SW G Crushed-stone plant Twin rail bed loading gantry for crushed stone 90 SE G Crushed-stone plant Twin rail bed loading gantry for crushed stone 91 S G Crushed-stone plant Row of six loading chutes for crushed stone 92 S G Crushed-stone plant Degraded concrete pillar at west end IM4 Tramway bed, kiln top to View along tramway from crushed-stone plant to 93 W crushed-stone plant kiln top IM4 Tramway bed, kiln top to View along tramway from crushed-stone plant to 94 E crushed-stone plant kiln top, with crushing plant below the fence IM4 Tramway bed, kiln top to Reused firebrick revetment wall to feature IM4 95 SSE crushed-stone plant Crushed-stone plant Tipping hopper for early phase of crushed-stone 96 NNE O plant 97 NNW O Crushed-stone plant Cast-iron hopper door not in situ 98 NNW O Crushed-stone plant Protective wall along top of crushing plant area 99 NNW O Crushed-stone plant View down from 98 to middle tier of the plant 100 NNW O Crushed-stone plant View down to middle and lower tiers of ditto 101 NNW O Crushed-stone plant Stacking bins behind the 6 chutes (image 91) 102 SSE O Crushed-stone plant Cast-iron tipping chute in middle tier of ditto Crushed-stone plant Lower flight of 20 concrete steps down to middle 103 E O tier of ditto 104 NW O Crushed-stone plant Within middle tier of ditto Crushed-stone plant View down from middle tier to top of rail loading 105 NNW O gantry Former tramway bridge Over tramway bed from east quarry to crushed- 106 SSE IM10 stone plant 107 NW U Compressed air tank Ex-situ 108 W IM5 Upper Incline View down to surviving bridge, feature IM11 109 N V Incline Haulage House Fixing mounts 110 NE V Incline Haulage House Fixing mounts with sub-station beyond 111 V Incline Haulage House Cable from Upper Incline 112 NNE W Sub-station for Incline Brick-built 113 NW W Sub-station for Incline Fixings 114 SE IM5 Upper Incline Re-used Jubilee rails, iron and sleepers 115 E Y Ruined cabin Near terminus of upper incline 116 NNW Z Terminus Upper Incline Stone buttressing and fixing ironwork 117 W IM11 Incline Bridge From east quarry to crushed-stone plant 118 E IM5 Incline Bridge View up the Upper Incline 119 N IM7 Tramway bed 120 NE IM5 Upper Incline Three-way junction of Upper Incline

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Image Direction Ref. Feature Brief Description No. Code 121 N Q Rectangular Building Rectangular stone-built building 122 SSW Q Rectangular Building Rectangular stone-built building 123 SE R Brick Building Adjacent to rectangular stone-built building 124 N S Cabin Demolished stone-built structure 125 N T Possible Weigh House On Tramway IM8 from east quarry 126 ESE P Possible Weigh House On Tramway IM7 from central quarry 127 S IM7 Quarry to kiln top View along tramway from kiln top 128 SE IM1 Road Access from A6 View from A6 up access to gatehouse A 129 SE F Kiln Battery front face View in November with leafless trees 130 S n/a Graffiti Modern graffiti on crusher loading gantry 131 S n/a Graffiti Modern graffiti on crusher loading gantry 132 SSE G Crushing Plant Gantry View in November with leafless trees 133 NW G Revetment wall Concrete top of dry stone wall revetment 134 ESE IM13 Contemporary Path Zigzag path from rail siding level to quarry 135 W n/a Path waymarker Modern plastic path waymarker 136 SW IM13 flight of steps At bottom of path IM13 137 S G Dry stone revetment Wall 138 W IM14 Railway Bridge Stone-built abutment for original bridge 139 SW IM14 Railway bridge Stone-built abutment for original bridge 140 NNW IM14 Protective fence Wire and Jubilee rail fencing 141 NNE F Circular Jubilee Rail Surrounding the easternmost bowl top 142 NNE F Circular Jubilee Rrail Close-up of easternmost bowl top 143 ESE IM15 Incline Plane From IM6 to top of spoilheap SC, looking up 144 W IM15 Incline Plane From IM6 to top of spoilheap SC 145 W AA Powder House Front face 146 NW AA Powder House Front face close-up 147 NE AA Powder House South face 148 SE AA Powder House Rear face 149 E AA Powder House West face 150 E IM16 High-level pathway From Powder House to quarry floor 151 E IM16 High-level pathway From Powder House to quarry floor 152 NNE O Original crusher hopper View looking down 153 NNW O Original crusher hopper View looking across top

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Appendix 3: Limestone Quarries in the Buxton and Dove Holes Area

Quarry Name NGR SK Year Year Other Limeworks Current Status Opened Closed Known Historically Dates Inactive but part of the modern 1919 or Dove Holes Quarry. No plant Bee Low 092 792 1922 current no installed Operational as part of Dove Holes Holderness 085 781 1860s current yes Quarry limeworks demolished Part of the modern Dove Holes Quarry and now the site for all Newline 092 775 c.1800 current no processing plant Doves Holes Closed and being reclaimed. All Dale 085 775 ? ? 1899 yes standing structures demolished Perseverance 085 770 1847 ? yes Closed. All plant demolished 1887, Closed. All plant demolished. Peak Dale 088 768 ? ? 1951 yes Reclaimed for farming Bold Venture 090 766 pre-1887 1939 yes Closed. All plant demolished Closed. All plant demolished. Now Small Dale 096 771 1890 1946 yes an industrial estate Lingard 097 768 1850 1920s no Re-wilded naturally Gorsey 097 769 1850s 1920s no Re-wilded naturally 1892 or Duchy 095 768 1899 1946 no Closed. Reclaimed for farming. Closed. Now part of the Tunstead Great Rocks 094 765 c. 1849 ? 1899 yes complex Closed. It had no plant but fed Longsidings 095 763 1915 1955 no Great Rocks with stone Upper End 094 760 1898 1910 no Closed. It had no plant. Garners 098 758 1910 1948 no Closed. It had no plant Closed. Now water-filled. Part of South 098 752 1900 1919 no the Tunstead complex Operational producing lime and Tunstead 098 740 1929 current yes cement using modern plant Closed. Was a landfill site, now Buxton Central 112 731 1872 1952 yes being reclaimed. No plant survives Closed. Now a wildlife reserve. Kiln battery and tramway network 1876 or survive intact. Crushing plant, built Miller's Dale 143 732 1878 1930 yes 1914, mostly demolished Closed. Now a wildlife reserve. Kiln battery preserved and East Buxton 134 734 1880 1944 yes accessible

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Quarry Name NGR SK Year Year Other Limeworks Current Status Opened Closed Known Historically Dates Operational using modern Ashwood Dale 080 725 1865 current no crushing plant Operational using modern Topley Pike 102 723 1920s current no crushing plant late Closed. All plant demolished. Now Grinlow or Grin 045 723 1899 1970s yes a Country Park and caravan site 1918, Closed. Infilled and returned to Burlow 070 706 1951 no farming Closed. All plant demolished. Now Harpur Hill 065 707 1881? ? 1945 yes an industrial park Mothballed. Modern crushing plant Hillhead 070 695 c. 1930 current no intact Buxton/Hindlow Lane 080 693 1928 current yes Mothballed. Kilns' status unknown Operational. Modern crushing Brier Low 090 687 ? current 1918 yes plant and lime kilns operational Quarry mothballed. Modern lime kilns and crushing plant Hindlow 095 678 1880s current yes operational Extensive modern crushing plant Dowlow 103 676 1874 current yes operational Long-since closed. Naturally regenerated for farming. No plant Victory 078 770 1863 ? yes within the quarry.

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Appendix 4: East Buxton and Miller’s Dale Limeworks

East Buxton Limeworks Image no Description 1 View within quarry 2 Top of kiln battery with Jubilee cart and circular rail track 3 Top of kiln battery with Jubilee cart and circular rail track 4 Top of kiln battery with Jubilee cart and circular rail track 5 Front face of kiln battery showing concrete buttressing 6 Front face of kiln battery showing concrete buttressing 7 Draw hole arch 8 General view of kiln battery on rail siding

Miller' s Dale Limeworks Image no Description 1 Kiln battery front face 2 Remains of crushing hoppers 3 Unknown stone-built structure 4 Derelict stone-built building 5 Quarry with tramway trackbed 6 Derelict stone-built structure 7 Tramway bed along edge of quarry 9 Incline plane from quarry to kiln top 9 Kiln front face with one draw arch visible 10 West draw arch with twin eyes 11 Twin eyes close-up 12 Remains of crushing plant loading gantries 13 Remains of crushing plant loading gantries

Beelow Quarry, Dove Holes Image no Description 1 Powder house outside Beelow Quarry

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East Buxton Limeworks: General view of the quarry

East Buxton Limeworks: Top of the kiln battery, with a Jubilee cart and circular rail track

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East Buxton Limeworks: Top of the kiln battery, with rail track

East Buxton Limeworks: Top of the kiln battery, with a Jubilee cart and circular rail track

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East Buxton Limeworks: Front elevation of kiln battery

East Buxton Limeworks: Detail of concrete buttresses on front elevation of the kiln battery

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East Buxton Limeworks: Draw hole arch

East Buxton Limeworks: General view of the kiln battery and rail siding

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Front elevation of the kiln battery

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Remains of crushing hoppers

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Remains of a stone-built structure

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Derelict stone-built building

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Quarry with tramway trackbed

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Derelict stone-built structure

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Tramway bed along the edge of the quarry

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Incline plane from the quarry to the kiln battery

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Front elevation of the kiln battery

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Western draw arch of the kiln battery

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Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Remains of crushing plant loading gantries

Miller’s Dale Limeworks: Front elevation of the kiln battery

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Beelow Quarry, Dove Holes: Powder House outside the quarry

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: Site location

Figure 2: Site components, including internal transportation infrastructure, spoil heaps and quarry areas, superimposed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1921-2

Figure 3: Site components, showing individual levels of significance, superimposed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1921-2

Figure 4: Distribution of limestone quarries in the Buxton and Dove Holes area

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