PMP2000 > Places > Charnwood History

INDUSTRIES

LIMESTONE:
The undisputed home of LIMESTONE quarrying in CHARNWOOD is BARROW ON SOAR. The favourable geology of the area meant that limestone was relatively near the surface and, as a consequence, has been mined here for centuries. To a lesser degree, limestone has also been produced in SEAGRAVE, SILEBY and HOTON, which have similar geological conditions, but this has never been as important as at BARROW.

Lime and gypsum have probably been a key BARROW industry almost 1,000 years but the earliest documentary record was in the reign of HENRY II (1154-89). This is found in a list of tithes from RALPH, EARL OF CHESTER to LEICESTER ABBEY. A reference to BARROW LIME is also found in the records of BEAUMANOR HOUSE for 1277 and there are purchase records of CHARNWOOD lime for building work in Leicester throughout the early 1300s. Fro this time, specific references to BARROW LIME become more frequent, with 55 limestone pits recorded in 1474 and 85 in 1481, known variously as "Lyme Pitt Holes", "Limepit Holes" or "Lymputes". With the limestone deposits so close to the surface, an open-cast system of extraction was probably first used.

The chief use of lime before the 17th century was probably for mortar and plaster, although much would also have been for agricultural use on the land. It was definitely used to build KIRBY MUXLOE CASTLE in 1480. The coming of the canals opened up a whole new market for lime in the making of harbours and dock walls, not only locally but as far afield as Ramsgate and even Holland. The railway age spread it's markets even further. In his 1866 book "The Physical Geology and Geography of the County of Leicester", DT Ansted says that BARROW LIME was "exported by rail and canal to all parts of the kingdom as a cement.... the works are now very extensive and the hard bands are removed over a large area".

Barrow's limestone deposits are famous for the fossils of marine reptiles that have been found there when the quarries were fully active. Chief amongst these have been Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. One of the latter was found in 1851 and has been the village emblem ever since, known locally as the "giant kipper". The fossil of a bream found in 1781 was described at the time as:

"More than a foot in length, and of a proportionate depth, with the scales, fins, and gills fairley projecting from the surface, like a sculpture in relievo, and with all the lineaments, even to the most minute fibres of the tail, so complete, that the like was never seen before".

In 1906, a contemporary writer tells that "the chief operations were in underground galleries", suggesting that the surface deposits had been exhausted by the early 20th century. By the 1930s, even these underground galleries had closed down and a 600 year old industry finally came to an end - but not before BARROW LIME had been chosen for the building of the LONDON TUBE network.