LONG WEEKEND 28th APRIL - 1st MAY 2023
DERBYSHIRE
By our man in the quarry, Rob Jones
Using cars for the delegates proved good in some ways but not so in others. It caused parking problems at museums during the busy bank holiday. Drivers had to contend with the vagaries of parking ticket machines, all different and all frustrating to use. On the other hand, the use of post codes and in car navigation systems has revolutionized finding obscure places.
FRIDAY 28th APRIL - BUGSWORTH BASIN
Our first stop was Bugsworth Basin, where we had a rather splendid buffet provided by the adjacent Navigation Inn. After the buffet, our guide Ian Edgar showed us around. He said he always enjoyed talking about Bugsworth Basin. What we saw was a well-ordered canal terminus system with interchange to the railway, but this was far from the case 40 years ago when it was overgrown and derelict. The restoration has been masterminded, and in many cases, done by, volunteers: It was done with no help, at the start, from British Waterways (as it was then). BW said there was no money, but they might be able to supply puddling clay. A request to JCB “on the golf course” resulted in the “loan” of a suitable digger!”. And then BW, having seen what the volunteers had done, said they would help! We then headed for the Newton House Hotel, whose postal address was Alsop le Dale, but which was, in fact, nowhere near it. The hotel was a converted large farmhouse, with farm buildings and stables.
Evening Lecture
In the evening we had a superb lecture by Dr Lynn Willies. Anyone who starts a lecture with “quarries are marvelous places” has to be good! By the end of the weekend we realized that Derbyshire was probably the county with more mineral deposits such as limestone and lead ore than any other in the UK. The statistics are remarkable, one quarry might pull down 100,000 tonnes in one go.
We learned all sorts of interesting facts. Dynamite tends to shatter whereas black powder tends to break the stone. After the first World War one quarry in Derbyshire, Hoptonwood, made 700,000 gravestone blanks for the then Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission). There were more injuries in the quarrying industry than in coal mining. Rapid developments elsewhere caused a decline but today a revolution is sweeping the industry, small portable “units” move into a quarry and process stone, it is called “Modular Quarrying”.
We learned that there were so many types of limestone, for the medical industry, for the food industry, a stone called Chert is used in making china, giving it strength and, of course, cement is made from it. As was pointed out, we cannot manage without cement as it is the most important ingredient of concrete! Still with me?
SATURDAY 29th APRIL - MATLOCK BATH MINING MUSEUM & TEMPLE MINE
In the morning we went to the Mining Museum at Matlock Bath, currently housed in the Pavilion. We spent about an hour and a half there, that wasn’t really enough. There was a great bookshop that we didn’t really have time to peruse.
Most of us made it to the Temple Mine in Matlock Bath. This site had been mined at different times for 200 years - we saw 20th century workings. Accompanied by the sound of hard hats hitting the low roof of the tunnels our guide Lynn explained how the rock was quarried and we saw limestone, lead, pyrites and bentonite deposits - the latter is the mineral used for cat litter as it swells with moisture! (Lynn's colleague is the world expert on the stuff!). There were even small deposits of gold but no nuggets in sight even though we panned for them after leaving the mine.
Some of us then braved the bank holiday hordes for a cable car ride up the Heights of Abraham - a cliff area so-called because of a resemblance to The Plains of Abraham near Quebec, Canada, where James Wolfe died at the Battle of Quebec (1759). The site has some underground caverns which can be visited and is a popular destination for families. But some of us couldn’t find parking in the afternoon and were forced to find an alternative visit location. And so back to the Convention Headquarters and our evening lecture.
Our lecturer was Eric Boultbee, and his talk was about the Eccleshall Railway and how it has grown to a nine-mile heritage line, The line closed to passengers in 1947 and to freight in 1989 but it was kept intact as it was regarded as strategically important. The line was used to test new rolling stock, with customers including Transport for London or, as I know it, London Transport.
SUNDAY 30th APRIL - DERBYSHIRE CENTRE FOR QUARRYING
In the morning we went to the Derbyshire Centre for Quarrying where we saw three quarries and two lime kilns. We had a tour led by Julian, an industry expert. He said, “Minerals are important!”. And in the afternoon, we proceeded to the nearby Matlock Bath Station car park where, for me, a happy 45 minutes was spent looking for a space so that we could go to the Heights of Abraham. Unfortunately, there was no space for my car (and dozens of others).
And we also saw an exhibition of drystone walling.
Evening Quiz
The evening quiz was masterminded by yours truly. The hotel produced a large screen, and we provided our own laptop and projector. We had two quizzes, one with pictures of famous Industrial Heritage people (Brassey, Lever, Arkwright, LTC Rolt, John Kay etc.) followed by a “Places” quiz Ironbridge, Bromborough, the Hat Works Stockport etc.). Prizes included a tea towel, books, a 1963 Liverpool Echo and chocolates. Most delegates got a prize, I noted that some were too tired to write answers and were just swept along with the bonhomie of the evening. Scoring was made fun. Four points if you got it right without a clue, two points if you needed a clue and one point if you knew the answer but couldn’t remember it. Self-marked, so lots of abuse, I hope. We presented gifts to Peter Purland, Helen Lyas and Renie Verity for facilitating the weekend.
MONDAY 1st MAY - MORE FUN AND THEN HOME
The Windmill at Heage
Our first visit was to the remarkable Windmill at Heage. It has six controllable sails. Excellent place to go to, very good demonstration and very interesting. They even made and sold flour.
National Tramway Museum
And then at about lunchtime we found ourselves at the National Tramway Museum, where the regular and overflow car parks were about full. It must have been one of their busiest days of the year. Lots of things were happening at the museum, tramcars, Morris Dancers, a maypole for the kids, a conjurer, but it was a bit low on IA content.
Did any of you go into the bookshop? Did you notice the bellows in the middle? This is known as the forge and was used by the blacksmith for the quarry. In places the line that the tram follows is the original mineral line from the quarry down to the railhead. It was built by you know who, George Stephenson. The present-day tram terminus, where we queued up, is infilled into a railway cutting! The line went under that road and down to the railhead.
The track was removed in the late 1950s and given to one of the North Wales heritage railways, I forget which, maybe the Talyllyn. Volunteers thought it might be good place to store the tramcars that had been saved. Previous attempts at placing them in conurbations had just resulted in vandalism and arson. So, they picked somewhere remote. nd that’s the reason why the museum is located where it is,
And so, we drove home, looking forward to another Long Weekend.
DERBYSHIRE
By our man in the quarry, Rob Jones
Using cars for the delegates proved good in some ways but not so in others. It caused parking problems at museums during the busy bank holiday. Drivers had to contend with the vagaries of parking ticket machines, all different and all frustrating to use. On the other hand, the use of post codes and in car navigation systems has revolutionized finding obscure places.
FRIDAY 28th APRIL - BUGSWORTH BASIN
Our first stop was Bugsworth Basin, where we had a rather splendid buffet provided by the adjacent Navigation Inn. After the buffet, our guide Ian Edgar showed us around. He said he always enjoyed talking about Bugsworth Basin. What we saw was a well-ordered canal terminus system with interchange to the railway, but this was far from the case 40 years ago when it was overgrown and derelict. The restoration has been masterminded, and in many cases, done by, volunteers: It was done with no help, at the start, from British Waterways (as it was then). BW said there was no money, but they might be able to supply puddling clay. A request to JCB “on the golf course” resulted in the “loan” of a suitable digger!”. And then BW, having seen what the volunteers had done, said they would help! We then headed for the Newton House Hotel, whose postal address was Alsop le Dale, but which was, in fact, nowhere near it. The hotel was a converted large farmhouse, with farm buildings and stables.
Evening Lecture
In the evening we had a superb lecture by Dr Lynn Willies. Anyone who starts a lecture with “quarries are marvelous places” has to be good! By the end of the weekend we realized that Derbyshire was probably the county with more mineral deposits such as limestone and lead ore than any other in the UK. The statistics are remarkable, one quarry might pull down 100,000 tonnes in one go.
We learned all sorts of interesting facts. Dynamite tends to shatter whereas black powder tends to break the stone. After the first World War one quarry in Derbyshire, Hoptonwood, made 700,000 gravestone blanks for the then Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission). There were more injuries in the quarrying industry than in coal mining. Rapid developments elsewhere caused a decline but today a revolution is sweeping the industry, small portable “units” move into a quarry and process stone, it is called “Modular Quarrying”.
We learned that there were so many types of limestone, for the medical industry, for the food industry, a stone called Chert is used in making china, giving it strength and, of course, cement is made from it. As was pointed out, we cannot manage without cement as it is the most important ingredient of concrete! Still with me?
SATURDAY 29th APRIL - MATLOCK BATH MINING MUSEUM & TEMPLE MINE
In the morning we went to the Mining Museum at Matlock Bath, currently housed in the Pavilion. We spent about an hour and a half there, that wasn’t really enough. There was a great bookshop that we didn’t really have time to peruse.
Most of us made it to the Temple Mine in Matlock Bath. This site had been mined at different times for 200 years - we saw 20th century workings. Accompanied by the sound of hard hats hitting the low roof of the tunnels our guide Lynn explained how the rock was quarried and we saw limestone, lead, pyrites and bentonite deposits - the latter is the mineral used for cat litter as it swells with moisture! (Lynn's colleague is the world expert on the stuff!). There were even small deposits of gold but no nuggets in sight even though we panned for them after leaving the mine.
Some of us then braved the bank holiday hordes for a cable car ride up the Heights of Abraham - a cliff area so-called because of a resemblance to The Plains of Abraham near Quebec, Canada, where James Wolfe died at the Battle of Quebec (1759). The site has some underground caverns which can be visited and is a popular destination for families. But some of us couldn’t find parking in the afternoon and were forced to find an alternative visit location. And so back to the Convention Headquarters and our evening lecture.
Our lecturer was Eric Boultbee, and his talk was about the Eccleshall Railway and how it has grown to a nine-mile heritage line, The line closed to passengers in 1947 and to freight in 1989 but it was kept intact as it was regarded as strategically important. The line was used to test new rolling stock, with customers including Transport for London or, as I know it, London Transport.
SUNDAY 30th APRIL - DERBYSHIRE CENTRE FOR QUARRYING
In the morning we went to the Derbyshire Centre for Quarrying where we saw three quarries and two lime kilns. We had a tour led by Julian, an industry expert. He said, “Minerals are important!”. And in the afternoon, we proceeded to the nearby Matlock Bath Station car park where, for me, a happy 45 minutes was spent looking for a space so that we could go to the Heights of Abraham. Unfortunately, there was no space for my car (and dozens of others).
And we also saw an exhibition of drystone walling.
Evening Quiz
The evening quiz was masterminded by yours truly. The hotel produced a large screen, and we provided our own laptop and projector. We had two quizzes, one with pictures of famous Industrial Heritage people (Brassey, Lever, Arkwright, LTC Rolt, John Kay etc.) followed by a “Places” quiz Ironbridge, Bromborough, the Hat Works Stockport etc.). Prizes included a tea towel, books, a 1963 Liverpool Echo and chocolates. Most delegates got a prize, I noted that some were too tired to write answers and were just swept along with the bonhomie of the evening. Scoring was made fun. Four points if you got it right without a clue, two points if you needed a clue and one point if you knew the answer but couldn’t remember it. Self-marked, so lots of abuse, I hope. We presented gifts to Peter Purland, Helen Lyas and Renie Verity for facilitating the weekend.
MONDAY 1st MAY - MORE FUN AND THEN HOME
The Windmill at Heage
Our first visit was to the remarkable Windmill at Heage. It has six controllable sails. Excellent place to go to, very good demonstration and very interesting. They even made and sold flour.
National Tramway Museum
And then at about lunchtime we found ourselves at the National Tramway Museum, where the regular and overflow car parks were about full. It must have been one of their busiest days of the year. Lots of things were happening at the museum, tramcars, Morris Dancers, a maypole for the kids, a conjurer, but it was a bit low on IA content.
Did any of you go into the bookshop? Did you notice the bellows in the middle? This is known as the forge and was used by the blacksmith for the quarry. In places the line that the tram follows is the original mineral line from the quarry down to the railhead. It was built by you know who, George Stephenson. The present-day tram terminus, where we queued up, is infilled into a railway cutting! The line went under that road and down to the railhead.
The track was removed in the late 1950s and given to one of the North Wales heritage railways, I forget which, maybe the Talyllyn. Volunteers thought it might be good place to store the tramcars that had been saved. Previous attempts at placing them in conurbations had just resulted in vandalism and arson. So, they picked somewhere remote. nd that’s the reason why the museum is located where it is,
And so, we drove home, looking forward to another Long Weekend.
