Leicester’s extractive
industries
It may come as a surprise to
readers that Leicester once had thriving extractive industries within the city
limits. Notably these were the extraction of clay for brick-making, gypsum for
plaster, sandstone and sand for building, as well as limestone quarries for the
manufacture of mortar. Little surface trace of these remains today.
A glance at the geological map (BGS sheet 156, description by Carney et
al. 2009) shows that there is a band of Mercia Mudstones (formerly Keuper
Marl) running roughly north to south through the area of Leicester city (see
also Horwood, 1913). The western half of this band is largely covered by the
River Soar and its alluvial floodplain, where quarries would be impractical
owing to flooding. But to the east the red mudstones underlie the higher parts
of the city where they could be quarried in the hillsides. Just inside the city
boundary there were the extensive New Star brick pits and kilns north of
Thurmaston Lane (= Humberstone brick works?), later levelled and an industrial
estate built on top. There were
brick-pits in nearby Gipsy Lane, of which little remains, though I remember
visiting them in the 1950s. Spinney Hill Park was developed on the site of
large brick-pits filled with rubbish. According to Harrison (1877) there was a
brick pit “near the cemetery”, presumably that at Welford Road. Other
brick-pits were adjacent to the nearby cattle market and on the site of
Wyggeston Girls School (now Regent College). To the south there was a large
quarry and brick kilns at Knighton Fields (also known as Knighton Junction
works), long since filled in and now the site of the University of Leicester
student flats (Nixon Court) behind the Homebase store. I have vague memories of
seeing derelict brick kilns there in the 1950s. West of the railway junction
there was another brick works on Saffron Lane and the site later had the sports
stadium built on it. Outside the city boundary near the Wigston railway
junction there was a brick-pit at Glen Parva; later this was filled in and the
Young Offenders Institution built on top. Again, just outside the city boundary
there were extensive brick-pits and kilns at Blaby, west of the County Arms
pub.
All the above worked the upper part of the Mercia Mudstones in the 19th
century when there was a high demand for bricks to build the terrace housing
for factory workers. The import of mass-produced bricks from the Oxford Clay
brickworks of Bedfordshire saw the gradual demise of Leicester’s brick
industry.
Sandstone was quarried from the Upper Keuper Sandstone (= Hollybush
Sandstone, Carney et al. 2009) in Dane Hills, now within Western Park,
though much was too crumby for building and the sand was used in mortar.
From LLPS
Transactions 1901
Sand and gravel were also
excavated from glacial outwash deposits at various locations along the Soar
Valley, particularly at Thurmaston (now with an ASDA store on top), near
Humberstone and at Aylestone, and most villages outside the city had their own
sandpits. I recall visiting a house built in one at Thurnby in the 1960s, just
north of the A46.
From LLPS Transactions 1901
At the base of the upper Mercia Mudstones gypsum was worked
on a large scale in Nottinghamshire and along the Trent Valley. A reduced thickness
of the gypsum bed extended through north Leicestershire (it was recently mined
near Barrow-on-Soar) into Leicester (Carney et al., 2009), where several
borings recorded gypsum beds (Fox-Strangways, 1903); Fox-Strangways quoted
Jukes (1838) as saying that there was a gypsum pit at Regent Road, Leicester,
possibly now part of Wyggeston Girls School playing fields. Gypsum was also
found in the footings for Knighton railway tunnel. There was a local demand for
gypsum to make plaster for the burgeoning terrace housing. Small quantities
were raised at Gipsy Lane and gypsum was also excavated from beneath the brick
clay at Spinney Hill with mine workings apparently extending beneath Mere Road
– an old shaft collapsed in a backyard there in the 1970s.
The Hydraulic Limestones at the base of the Lower Lias were quarried
around Barrow-on-Soar and there were small quarries at Crown Hills, near the
Leicester General Hospital (see sketch map in Fox-Strangways, 1903). One
limestone quarry was close to Ethel Road and the site was later redeveloped for
a Waitrose store (Boynton, 2004). To the south of the city boundary, there were
limestone quarries near Kilby Bridge. The limestone was used fro the
manufacture of lime, much of which was used in mortar for building terrace
housing. There were tramways to convey the limestone to kilns in the Willow
Brook valley but nothing remains of them. The quarries were long ago filled
with rubbish and a housing estate built on top.
The above survey is by no means
exhaustive, and I suggest that some member might like to take up the subject as
a research project. A start could be made by examining the 19th
century editions of large scale Ordnance Survey maps and then scanning the
various commercial directories: early Geological Survey publications add some
detail (e.g. Fox-Strangways, 1903). Most of these are held at the
Leicestershire Record Office in Wigston. Who worked which pits and when? How
many bricks were produced? Who were the builders? Who used the bricks? Were
there any other gypsum mines? And were there any other quarries in the
Hydraulic Limestones? Some details of the brickworks can be found in Boynton
(2003).
The manufacture of bricks, plaster and mortar required coal for kilns;
this was brought in from northwest Leicestershire by rail, but a local source
would have been better, so in the 19th century the Evington Coal and
Lime Company drilled deep boreholes at Crown Hills in search of a hypothetical
concealed coalfield: they did not find any coal and the boreholes terminated in
Lower Palaeozoic rocks directly below the Trias (Fox-Strangways, 1903; Carney et
al., 2009).
Finally we might note that most sites of these extractive industries
have been obliterated by later development but they should not be forgotten as old
quarries filled in with rubbish may not form the best of foundations for new
buildings.
References
Boynton, H.E. 2003. Knighton and Clarendon Park. Published
by the author, Oadby. 75pp.
Boynton, H.E. 2004. South East of Leicester. Published by
the author, Oadby. 100pp.
Carney, J.C., Ambrose, K., Cheney,
C.S. and Hobbs, P.R.N. 2009. Geology of
the Leicester District. British Geological Survey Sheet 156 description.
Keyworth. 110pp.
Fox-Strangways, C. 1903. The Geology of the Country near Leicester.
Memoir of the Geological Survey. 122 pp.
Harrison, W.J. 1877. The Geology
of Leicester and Rutland. White, Sheffield. 70pp.
Horwood, A.R. 1913. The Upper
Trias of Leicestershire. Geological
Magazine, Decade IV, vol.7, pp. 21-32, 73-86, 109-121 and 205-215.
Jukes, A.J. 1838. The Analyst. Vol 8, p. 7.
Trevor D. Ford
