© Joe Douglas. 2016

QUARRY ADVENTURES

Once settled into our new peer groups at the Grammar School we started to stretch our wings,  or perhaps I should say legs, to explore the area round Cockermouth. The introduction to Geology started us looking for fossils and the limestone quarries were the obvious places to look. The nearest ones were between Brigham and Eaglesfield. Travelling from Brigham the first one was on the left of Hotchberry brow, about half way between the villages. See the map below.  A bit further on on the right hand side was Tendley. (A very modest operation in the 1950’s compared with today’s workings.)

Hotchberry Quarry

The quarry had been closed for many years by the time we went there. It can be seen in the map There was a pair of kilns near the entrance at the bottom of the hill and the road into the quarry was up past the kilns. The quarry floor was almost completely covered with bushes and brambles. Initially we were only interested in the quarry face and the fossil corals and shells in the rock fragments. At first we hunted through the bits at the bottom of the face but were soon climbing up the quarry face and searching on the ledges.  

Exploring the quarry floor we discovered some narrow gauge rail tracks, once used to carry the stone down to the kilns buried in the bushes. As we uncovered the track we came across some rusty, but complete, trucks. We put them on the rails, cleared all the foliage and other stuff stuck to them and got them rolling.

Clearing more track we found points and got them working and finished with a working line all the way down to the top of the kilns. Our rides down the quarry through the bushes & brambles were hairy to say the least. It was decades before Indiana Jones tried the same thing!

Today there is no indication that quarry had ever existed.

Tendley Quarry

Two of us visited the working quarry hoping we might get a look round.  As we wheeled our bikes  through the entrance we were stopped by a chap who said that he guessed that I was Bill Douglas’ son. (I had curly hair just like my dad.). He was right.

The man was Tyson Burridge, my dad’s cousin. He was in charge and we were allowed in for the day. The highlight was helping to set the charges in the already drilled quarry face. The stick explosives and fuses were put in the holes by the quarrymen and we helped back-filling the holes with a powdered explosive. I think it was called Ammonite and  based on Ammonium Nitrate of some kind. The last thing that day was the actual firing.

The  noise, vibration and the sight of the whole face crumbling and falling down was unforgettable and comes to mind every time I see quarry blasting on TV. The only regret was that I wasn’t allowed, for obvious reasons,  to press the button.

I went past the still working Tendley quarry a couple of years ago and it seemed to be knocking on the borders of Eaglesfield.

Broughton Craggs

Broughton Craggs quarry was the other side of the river Derwent . It had been disused for many years with trees growing in it. It was not as rich in fossils as Hotchberry but the face was higher.  Coming down the face was a steel tube about 2 inches diameter. This provided a ready aid when clambering on the weathered face.

Embleton Granite Quarry

The visit to this quarry looking for mineral specimens rather than fossils was memorable. We went for a brew with the quarrymen in their hut and hanging on the wall was a 14 pound sledge hammer, nearly six and a half kilograms. Painted on the wall above the huge hammer were the words “STAN’S HAMMER”. It was the hammer used by my uncle Stan, (Stanley Launder), when he worked there. He was well respected by the quarrymen and the hammer was a clear reminder of his strength.