Tag: ironstone mining
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Roseberry Mine Reservoir
Operations at the Roseberry Ironstone Mine would have been dependent on steam power. In the 1931 public auction when the mining equipment was sold off, the lots included 2 hauling engines, 1 compressor, 1 fan engine, 4 boilers, and 2 pumping engines. To supply all these steam engines with sufficient water a reservoir was built 25 feet on the slope…
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The Slapewath Gap
The defile between Belmont Bank and Airy Hill, the “natural” route east from Guisborough and on to Whitby. A route that would clearly connect up with the medieval trod, the Quakers Causeway, across the moors. In 1861 the Cleveland Railway was built through the gap to access the ironstone mines of East Cleveland enticing landowners…
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Mount Vittoria
Another overcast and windy day with just the one brief glimpse of the sun. It happened when I was perambulating Cringle Moor, with Cold Moor getting the benefit. Or should I call it Mount Vittoria, the name on the 1857 map for the plantation which covered it. A much preferable name. I’m guessing that it…
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High Bousdale from Roseberry
A view from the summit of Roseberry Topping towards Guisborough down the forested valley of High Bousdale, between Bousdale Hill and Ryston Bank with the Hanging Stone at its nab. High Bousdale was once contemplated as a means of access to the ironstone holdings below Roseberry. There would have been an incline from the Middlesbrough…
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Roseberry in the Golden Hour
That last hour before period sunset, when the sun is low on the horizon and its rays pass through the atmosphere for a greater distance, becoming weaker, more diffracted, and appearing redder. The spoil heap is from the transhipment yard where the iron ore from the Roseberry Mine was transferred from the narrow-gauge railway onto…
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Powder House, Belmont Ironstone Mine
The climb up Highcliff Nab from Hunter Hill Farm used to be one of my regular routes, but I rarely get that way much now, so I was surprised to see how much clear felling of Guisborough Wood has been done, with I guess more to follow. I remember this heavily reinforced concrete bunker being…
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Roseberry Ironstone Mine
It would have been bleak for the folk of Great Ayton on this day in 1921 when the 220 workers at the Roseberry Ironstone Mine received notice to cease work, at the end of which the mine would be idle. It would have been the talk of the village. The mine had reopened in 1906…
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Tocketts Ironstone Mine Ventilation Shaft
Hidden away on the steep wooded slopes of Tocketts Beck, a reminder of the Cleveland ironstone boom. A ventilation shaft with a tall, rather precarious looking chimney built to aid the updraft just above where a Public Footpath crosses the beck. The mine was a short-lived venture lasting for just nine years from 1880 although…
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East Rosedale old kilns
Lovely rich colours of the sandstone masonry of the old calcining kilns at East Rosedale, miraculously still standing after a century of abandonment. The inner linings of fire bricks look very precarious. An idea of the industrial scene in the 1920s can be seen in this old photo https://goo.gl/images/yALTvw although when it was taken the…
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South Skelton Ironstone Mine
Most buildings associated with the ironstone mines of East Cleveland have either long since been demolished or converted for industrial use. South Skelton Mine is the one exception because I suppose it went into agricultural use. The farm has now been abandoned and I understand the site is now earmarked for residential development. Operations began…