Weardale Cement Works (NY947385 & thereabouts)

© Copyright Helen Wilkinson and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Anyone familiar with the upper reaches of the Wear Valley during the late 20^th century will remember the blot on the landscape that was the Weardale Cement Works. As well as, of course, being the area’s chief employer for the best part of four decades, the factory’s lofty tower served as a useful landmark for disoriented ramblers.

The main ingredient of cement is ground limestone, and limestone quarrying has been a popular pastime in these parts since at least the 1840s. So when cement was ‘invented’ and its production encouraged in the early 20^th century, the existing activity in the Wear Valley made it a likely spot for the manufacture of the new-fangled construction material. It wasn’t until the 1960s, though, that the industry set up shop at the location in question, a little to the west of Eastgate.

The whole complex was spread over a large area. On the valley side to the south was the quarry itself; a little above this was sited the plant which crushed the stone; and a long conveyor belt took the spewed out material down and across the valley to the north bank where the rest of the cement production was, via a series of complex chemical processes, completed. The conveniently located Weardale Railway then took the finished product eastwards towards civilisation, though a good deal of it left the works in the familiar bright yellow livery of the Blue Circle lorries.  

The large chimney formed part of the latter works, being the smokestack of the kiln. Beginning life in 1965, the works themselves, though, enjoyed a relatively short-lived existence. The famous Blue Circle brand was taken over by French firm Lafarge in 2001, and operations ceased the following year when the company decided to concentrate its efforts on plants elsewhere in the country. By 2006 the whole plant had been demolished – and ramblers now wander lost among the fells with no guiding light to steer them home.

The photo above shows the demolition process taking place, with, it seems, the famous tower being the last element to fall.

Lime Kilns? (various locations – Beadnell’s at NU237285)

Many of you will have noticed large man-made, cave-like structures dotted around the British countryside, and perhaps even be aware that they are lime kilns. Maybe a teacher or a relative pointed this out to you years ago – information which you have sagaciously passed on to the next generation, of course. But did your teacher/parent/mentor – and, in turn, your good self – really know what was meant when some adult show-off uttered unconvincingly “Well, they’re, er … lime kilns, aren’t they. For making, erm, lime.”?

Well, lime – or, rather, quicklime – is indeed produced inside a lime kiln. And it is achieved, basically, by the heating of limestone to 900-1,000°C, at which temperature the stone ‘calcinates’, or breaks down. Carbon dioxide is given off, leaving calcium oxide – or quicklime. In other words:
CaCO3 + heat = CaO + CO2
or,
Limestone + heat = quicklime + carbon dioxide

Quicklime is really useful stuff, and can be used in mortar/plaster, paper/glass/steel production, sewerage treatment, etc., but is especially handy in agriculture (to counter acidic soils) and to hide the smell of decomposition in open graves (plague outbreaks, and the like). Curiously, before electric lighting came along it was used in theatres as an illuminant – as it glows brightly when heated to high temperatures (hence ‘limelight’). Anyway, historically, at least, there was quite a demand for the stuff.

The thing is, quicklime is rather unstable. Left to its own devices it will react naturally with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and revert to its ‘natural’ limestone state. Transportation, therefore, is/was a problem – as was easily lumping about the limestone, and, indeed, the coal needed to heat the kilns themselves. So, this is why you find so many lime kilns near the coast: easy to get the limestone/coal in, and easy to get the quicklime out. So quayside spots like those at Seahouses and Beadnell were perfect. Improvements in the transportation network during the nineteenth century led to many more inland (and often much larger) sites being developed.

So the next time your little sidekick asks the question, you know exactly what to say. And, moreover, you’ll know precisely what you’re talking about.

Beadnell Lime Kilns
(by Tom Curtis)