Cocking lime works..Sussex

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Mikeymutt

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I have always fancied seeing this classic place and as me and man gone wrong were near we visited one cold morning.i enjoyed all the little buildings and the kilns themselves were very impressive,they were huge things.and getting on top was fun.and the little shelf that runs along the top just underneath the kilns was a bit ropey to see the least.we then walked up to the quarry and spent a little while up there.cocking limeworks the main works was founded in the early 1900's but there had been kilns on there for a couple of hundred years.the quarry suppied the works with lime for the production of bricks made by a sister company called Midhurst bricks.the excavation of lime was at first excavated by hand with workers hanging on ropes.i can imagine that was just a tad exciting,or maybe not.later dynamite was used to remove chalk from the quarry walls.trams on a narrow gauge line were used originaly to ferry the chalk down to the works.then later a conveyor system raised in the air.but in the 60's a raised small road was constructed to move the chalk by lorries.i in later years the works produced lime and chalk mix for agriculture use.the works stopped producing for bricks when the associated brickworks ceased trading in 1985 and work carried on for the agricultural use.the whole site ceased operations in 1999.


Looking over the quarry

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A couple of the old machines lay about

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I have no idea what this machine was used for

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The chalk was transported to the works and drove up tp the embankment and tipped into a crushing machine

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The hopper still lays near the tipping point of the chalk in the primary crusher.the chalk was then transported by conveyor belt to another building set high.this was the immediate chalk crusher,which would grind it down finely.

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The primary crushing building set up high

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Inside the crushing building are various machines for the process.

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The finished lime would then be transported to the kilns by conveyor for drying

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There were eight kilns altogether.the one either end were added in later years.

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Steps leading to the top of the kilns

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Just underneath the top of the kilns

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At the top of the kilns a dragline excavator was used to load them for drying

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The chalk would be put into this large building which was the final screening building,conveyor belts were used to move the chalk into lorries

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There was also a storage area for the chalk and lime

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Another crackin set of pics Mikey! I love that second shot of the rusty crane, it looks like an old dinosaur munching on the grass hahaha and the tyre covered in ivy well spotted very nice!

I think this is one I'd like to get to see whilst the trees are still bare, can't beat a good brick kiln lol:)
 
A shame that another industry has ceased and nature is taken over.

Yes; but it was understood even when this site (and others similar) was still in the planning stage, that eventually nature would take over again. Life story of every mineral extraction site - Eventually extraction become more expensive than market value of mineral in question or mineral deposits just run out. The end of operations is always on the horizon once you start quarrying or mining, an inescapable fact unfortunately. But then again - if that was not the case, we would never see superb images such as these. Very nice Mikey!
 
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