Boltby Scar: The Quarry That Fetched Four Bob a Ton

A view along Boltby Scar, on the western edge of Hambleton Down, where the wind brushes across an Iron Age promontory fort and ancient round barrows¹Boltby Scar promontory fort and two round barrows. List Entry Number: 1013086. Historic England. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1013086?section=official-list-entry. Beneath them lies a long-abandoned limestone quarry, silent now, but once echoing with the clang of hammers and the groan of wagons. Nearly a century ago, in 1927, it was in the hands of the Thirsk Rural District Council—a seemingly unlikely industrial venture for local government.

That year, the august “Settmakers’ and Stoneworkers’ Journal” turned its stony gaze upon the operation²Settmakers’ and Stoneworkers’ Journal – 01 November 1927. More money saved? https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003533/19271101/005/0001. It reported with thinly veiled amusement that the council had flogged 400 tons of “second class stone” to the North Riding County Council for the princely sum of four shillings a ton. Within the council chamber, a lively argument followed. Some claimed the quarry was a triumph of municipal thrift, saving ratepayers a fortune by producing stone at less than half the open market price. Others, perhaps less dazzled by the arithmetic, wondered whether the figures had been massaged, the labour underpaid, or the truth simply quarried away.

The Journal was unimpressed. Its correspondent noted that the quarry’s own surveyor had admitted the stone was “of no use” to Thirsk itself—a damning verdict. What began as a local attempt to turn rock into revenue instead became a tale of doubtful economics and civic vanity. Today, the site lies still and empty, its workings overgrown, its ledgers closed, and the only sound the sigh of the wind over the scar—whispering of ambition, argument, and a profit that may never have existed.

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  Boltby Scar promontory fort and two round barrows. List Entry Number: 1013086. Historic England. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1013086?section=official-list-entry
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  Settmakers’ and Stoneworkers’ Journal – 01 November 1927. More money saved? https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003533/19271101/005/0001