Petlar’s Bridge Quarry: A Brief Flirtation with Industry

I must have cycled past this old quarry near Petlar’s Bridge a couple of dozen times or so since the plantation hiding it was felled, and it has since been on my list to write about.

The quarry must pre-date the Eskdale railway by half a century. One unverified internet source claims whinstone was extracted here in the 1830s and the site abandoned by the 1880s, presumably once worked out¹Quarry Plantation. geograph.org.uk. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6393303. The NYMNP Historic Environment Record puts it in use by 1857 or earlier²LONSDALE QUARRY/MINE. NYMNP HER Nos:  71/6052, and small quarries do appear higher up the seam on the 1853 OS map but not at this location³OS Six-inch England and Wales, Yorkshire Sheet 29. Surveyed: 1853, Published: 1856, https://maps.nls.uk/view/266664997#zoom=6.2&lat=9011&lon=16032&layers=BT.

Work must have started before 1892/3, when the OS map first shows a quarry in this exact spot⁴OS Six-inch England and Wales,Yorkshire Sheet XXIX.NE, Surveyed: 1892 to 1893, Published: 1895, https://maps.nls.uk/view/100941986#zoom=6.5&lat=1796&lon=3948&layers=BT. Just before that date, the Kildale Whinstone Company had been formed to work the far larger Lonsdale quarry near Woodend Farm. Whether that company also worked this smaller site remains a question for another day.

While Lonsdale quarry was active, six two-storey houses went up at New Row, joining six single-storey dwellings built by the Lonsdale Vale Iron Co. Ltd. in 1865-7. Folk memory holds that a further terrace once stood opposite, demolished for the Methodist Chapel in 1909. After the ironstone company collapsed in 1868, the cottages were handed over to quarry workers instead⁵Anthony, Cedric. Glimpses of Kildale History. The Whinstone Quarry.Pp 382-397. Val Anthony. November 2012..

By the 1881 census, ironstone mining in Kildale had finished, and whinstone quarrying became the “main industrial activity” in the parish, sustaining that year’s peak population. Ironstone was a “brief flirtation with industry”; whinstone proved “longer-term”, though not long enough to save Kildale from settling back into quiet farmland once the quarrying stopped too⁶Marsh, Elizabeth Caroline. The Impact of the Decline of the Cleveland Ironstone Industry. PhD. University of York. History. December 2021..

• 1
  Quarry Plantation. geograph.org.uk. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6393303
• 2
  LONSDALE QUARRY/MINE. NYMNP HER Nos:  71/6052
• 3
  OS Six-inch England and Wales, Yorkshire Sheet 29. Surveyed: 1853, Published: 1856, https://maps.nls.uk/view/266664997#zoom=6.2&lat=9011&lon=16032&layers=BT
• 4
  OS Six-inch England and Wales,Yorkshire Sheet XXIX.NE, Surveyed: 1892 to 1893, Published: 1895, https://maps.nls.uk/view/100941986#zoom=6.5&lat=1796&lon=3948&layers=BT
• 5
  Anthony, Cedric. Glimpses of Kildale History. The Whinstone Quarry.Pp 382-397. Val Anthony. November 2012.
• 6
  Marsh, Elizabeth Caroline. The Impact of the Decline of the Cleveland Ironstone Industry. PhD. University of York. History. December 2021.