Mine and quarry after uses: Grin Quarry, Buxton
Mines and quarries are a temporary use of the land which they occupy. This land can be restored and re-used for a range of different purposes. The former Grin Quarry and associated tips have been transformed into a caravan and country park. The lime tips and kilns at Bibbington near Dove Holes were demolished and used to part fill nearby Victory Quarry. The residual flooded areas at this site are now used for diving practice. Nearby Perseverance Quarry has been reshaped, seeded and planted with trees.
Following rationalisation of quarrying in the 1930s, various sites around Harpur Hill near Buxton became a mushroom farm, speedway track, a Sheffield University research base (mine safety, atmosphere etc.) and is now, an industrial estate.
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South Works, Bold Venture and Longsidings Quarries were filled with clay slurry from washing limestone to produce high purity stone, although since 1965, these ‘washings' have been used as raw material in cement-making at Tunstead. Plants to manufacture concrete blocks have built in Duchy and Hillhead Quarries. These utilise fine-sized limestone which would otherwise be tipped as waste.
Lead mine shafts are now capped, but in the past they were often walled-off or planted with trees in an attempt to keep animals out. The result is that solitary clumps of trees in fields often mark shafts. Many mine waste heaps around Bonsall and Wirksworth have been recycled to recover fluorspar and baryte. Waste from processing fluorspar has been used to fill old quarries near Brassington. |
