Dale Quarry (Big Hole) A
Dale quarry, also known as the big hole, is the most southerly of the
quarries that were served by the railway. It was opened in 1874 by Arthur
Harward under the name of the Wirksworth Dale Stone and Lime Company when stone
and lime were carted by horse and cart to the station. The “Nimbys” of that day
were not impressed by this or the scheme mooted to build a tramway through the
streets, but in the end the plan of a tunnel under the town was approved, the
work taking 18 months, opening with a large public gathering and ceremony on 17th
November 1877, including a trip through the tunnel in a special train.
Although a great engineering success the expenditure bankrupted Harward
who in Dec 1879 was forced to sell out to a J G Compton of Derby and after a
couple of further changes of ownership ended up with the Butterley Company
until the 1920s when it closed.
In 1925 it was bought by Wirksworth Quarries Ltd who then ran it up to
its closure in 1968, although it had
come into the ownership of Tarmac Ltd.
Although worked by steam loco for much of its life latterly the ballast
was built up to track level and lorries worked the traffic. The tunnel was lit
throughout by electric light and a traffic light system was used to regulate
the lorries.
The quarry provided limestone for sugar-beet processing, concrete
manufacture and use in tarmac and in the sixties over 50 men were employed.
Since closure a lot of the quarry has been filled in although the
tunnel still acts as a drain, as a visit
to the tunnel mouth has confirmed until the early part of 2005. Underground
drainage now carries away the water and a narrow gauge track has been laid into
the tunnel entrance.
In Howard Sprenger’s book he mentions a “what might have been” when in
the eighties a proposal for an Eden Project like development was proposed
called The Wirksworth Astropit Project the quarry was to have been roofed over
and filled with plants and animals!
That would have given our railway that little added extra.
Photographs of this quarry in
1936,
1938,
and the big freeze winter of 1947
are here by kind permission of Mrs S and Mr D Millar. Mrs Millar's father Ralph Blackwall was the quarry manager from 1937 to 1951.
Abandoned and partially filled as it was in 1992,
The depth of this quarry had clearly grown with passing years
Photo taken in
2005, from one of the very few publically accessible points looking over the town show the partial filling..
