# Edge Hill Quarries



## borntobemild (Apr 17, 2009)

Edge Hill is at the N end of the Cotwold Escarpment, North East of Banbury. The area contains many quarries where Hornton Stone was extracted. Hornton Stone is a dark brown limestone, given it's distinctive colour by high quantities of iron ore.

It was once in great demand as building stone, due to it's attractive appearance and good weathering properties. Most of the colleges at Oxford are constructed from it.

Sadly the industry is in decline now, and the last stone dressing company. The Hornton Stone Co. has just closed down.

There are still many quarries in the area and the remains of the mineral railways that took the stone to the main line in Banbury. 

The quarries are in various states of decay. One looks like it has been worked until very recently. The oldest (inevitably) is now a landfill site.

I went there primarily as they are good for mountain biking, so taking the photos was a bit of an afterthought. That's an excuse for them being a bit crap. It was a very gloomy day.

This particular quarry was obviously where they stored all their obsolete quarrying equipment.












Turbo???
















nice old lorry


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## Foxylady (Apr 18, 2009)

Nice to see the old equipment, btbm. Would love to see some more of the quarries, though. Are you planning on going back?


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## TK421 (Apr 18, 2009)

Love quarries, and love that last shot of the 'retired' Leyland, thanks for sharing this


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## The Pirate (Apr 18, 2009)

Nice pics is there a lot on the site ??


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## borntobemild (Apr 18, 2009)

Pirate - there was more stuff in the quarry but it wasn't all that interesting - old containers, trailers etc. 

FL - yes I'll be going back for another look around. Maybe to the Hornton Stone works which is now disused - when i went (over Easter) I thought it must just be closed.

The quarry that looked like it was active didn't have much in - just a couple of bogies? used for transporting the rocks. The colour of the rocks would look lovely in the evening though so might go back for that.

Mineral railways were either destroyed by agriculture or totally overgrown. Bear Grylls would have had trouble getting through.

There are quarries around the Hook Norton area as well.


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## batroy (Apr 23, 2009)

borntobemild said:


> Pirate - there was more stuff in the quarry but it wasn't all that interesting - old containers, trailers etc.
> 
> FL - yes I'll be going back for another look around. Maybe to the Hornton Stone works which is now disused - when i went (over Easter) I thought it must just be closed.
> 
> ...



I followed up the mineral railway network back in the mid 80s when it was a lot more visible. Primarily it was there to serve opencast ironstone mining. (Edit: wrong railway, see below)

Apart from where it used to go through Banbury it's most visible where the A road suddenly finds itself on an embankment between former quarries with a former railway bridge that used to take the mineral railway underneath it.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=439885&Y=242180&A=Y&Z=120

The depot for the railway was here:

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=440605&Y=242737&A=Y&Z=120


Edit: Having had a look at http://peoplesmap.com who incidentally have some of the ironstone railway on their 1930s out of copyright maps I realise I'm not talking about the same railway as you. You mean this one, don't you.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=438275&Y=248489&A=Y&Z=120


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## borntobemild (Apr 24, 2009)

thanks for the info Batroy. The first railway i saw was a little bit further nw. You can see another bridge further up the A422. I think it led to what is now the Alkerton landfill.
You're right about the other one. It went straight down the escarpment - very steep! There must have been some sort of winding engine I think.


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## Black Shuck (Apr 24, 2009)

Nice to see a decent quarry now and again. Lovely to see all the bits still in situ. Good shots by the way and well done to you BTBM.


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