The Oreton Limestone Industry

A brief introduction to the history of limestone working at Oreton, in Stottesdon and Farlow

Oreton, 1884 [+]
This extract from the First Series 1:2500 OS map shows the location of the limestone quarries and kilns in Oreton in 184

Limestone is a rock chiefly made up of calcium carbonate. It can be formed in various ways. Some is made from the calcium-rich skeletons of plants or animals. Crinoidal limestone is an example of this and is largely formed from fragments of animals known as sea lillies. Limestone can also be formed by chemical deposition. Tiny fragments of shells or grains of sand can be coated with layers of calcium carbonate to form particles known as ooliths. These fuse together to give a very fine-grained material known as oolitic limestone. Fragments of existing limestone can also fuse together, held by crystals of calcite. Limestone exists in varying degrees of purity; it can be mixed in with sand or clay to form calcerous conglomerates and shales.

In the Oreton and Farlow areas the limestone beds were laid down in a shallow tropical sea. which had spread over a previously dry area. As a result of this, the limestones rest on a yellow sandstone, the original land surface. At the start of the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago, this became increasingly prone to flooding. At first this brought eroded material from further inland; angular pebbles of sandstone that form a reddish brown layer known as sandstone conglomerate. As the sea deepened, limestone deposition began. This has produced thick layers of crinoidal and oolitic limestone, grey crystalline limestone and beds of shales and buff, sandy limestones. The total thickness of all the limestone beds is about 150’; individual beds can vary from a few feet in thickness to 20’ or 30’. The beds have been much disturbed by faulting, causing the strata to be dislocated and twisted. As a general rule however, the beds dip down to the south west. The limestone outcrop runs for about 2½ miles from near Silvington, through Farlow and Oreton, across the Rea before ending at Prescott. Limestone deposition was ended as the sea started to retreat again and huge river deltas poured sand out over the area. Thus the limestones are succeeded by sandstones and clays that now cover Oreton and Silvington commons.

Uses of limestone.
Limestone has found uses both as building material and as a chemical raw material. In the first case, it can be used as a building stone or as a roadstone. Oreton limestone was extensively used for building. The poorer quality stone and the thin or fragmented beds would be used for farm buildings and walls, but the thick limestone beds (particularly those of oolitic limestone) made a good freestone. A freestone is a fine-grained stone that can be worked in any direction by the stone mason. Of particular value was a shelly bed of oolitic limestone known locally as the “Jumbles” or “Clee Hill marble”. It was not marble, but the shells formed very attractive patterns when the rock was polished and so it fetched a premium as a decorative stone. As a chemical, limestone could be used in many ways. Crude limestone was used as a flux in iron smelting. However, for most uses the limestone needed to be heated in a kiln to give quicklime. Chemically this represents the conversion of calcium carbonate to calcium oxide. Quicklime reacts vigorously with water to produce slaked lime, calcium hydroxide. Unlike limestone itself, slaked lime will dissolve slightly in water to give an alkaline solution and its very small particle size also means it can easily be taken up by plants. These properties make it a valuable fertiliser and, particularly from the mid-Eighteenth Century, large quantities of quicklime were used to improve farmland. The product has also been used by builders since antiquity for mortar. Another, more minor use of slaked lime is in tanning. There is no doubt that much local limestone was burnt in kilns, probably for agricultural use.

Working the limestone.
Limestone was extracted from the ground with simple tools; picks, hammers, wedges and crowbars. Wherever possible, natural faults would be exploited. Where building stone was required, the emphasis would have been on obtaining large, regular shaped blocks. Here considerable skill was needed with picks and chisels to cut out a series of holes or a grove which could then be split by wedges (“plug and feathers”). Where the limestone was used as rubble or for burning in kilns, then it was a positive advantage to remove it in small pieces. Gunpowder was available for blasting from the Eighteenth Century, either for the limestone itself or to remove the overlying strata. In the larger quarries, the stone seems to have been removed in a series of steps, so that the working face was not much more than 20’ high. Some skill was needed in planing quarrying operations to ensure that the inevitable waste was tipped into worked-out areas and not over unworked reserves of stone where it would subsequently need to be moved again.

Much local limestone ended up in lime kilns. The earliest and simplest form of kiln was just a stone-lined bowl, open at the top, in which limestone was mixed with firewood or coal and the whole mass set on fire. After it had burnt itself out, the walls of the kiln would be demolished and the lime removed. However, the kilns that survive today were more sophisticated. These were also open-topped, stone-lined bowls, but with an additional opening in the base (the draw-hole). This was enclosed by side walls and stone roof, making a space called the draw tunnel where the quicklime could be kept dry whilst it cooled. The Oreton kilns are very distinctive on account of their squat shape (about 10’ high) and flat-topped draw tunnels. Like their predecessors, they would be loaded with a mixture of lime and small pieces of coal from the top. The draw-hole would be sealed after the coal had been ignited and the kiln contents would be left to burn for several days. After it had cooled, the draw-hole would be opened, the quicklime raked out and the kiln reused.

History of the industry
The first documentary references to limestone working at Oreton and Farlow are in the 17th Century, although it is likely that some quarrying had been going on long before that. An informative document is dated 7th April 1663; unfortunately it is damaged but enough survives to make the meaning clear. In it, William Hammond and his wife Elizabeth, probably of Oreton and William Greenhouse of Bagginswood gave to William Childe of Kinlet “part of the hill ground [adjacent to several lime kilns?] already built and two other lime kiln places now also let out and appointed to be forewith erected and built…which ground is abutted …on the north side by the hedge adjoining unto the other lime kilns of Margery [Hammond?] .. and so along the edge or brow of the said hill..” This was clearly land somewhere along the brow of Oreton bank, where the limestone first outcrops. Childe was given the land to quarry limestone and to build lime kilns. In 1687 Childe in turn was letting out a lime kiln in Farlow, to Matthew Baldwin of Overwood, Neen Savage. A marriage settlement of 20th July 1711, sheds some light on the process of opening out a quarry. This allowed George Millichap, Timothy Smith and Thomas Wall “to dig and burn for sale and their own use and to take away and carry lime and limestone and erect and make use of one or more kilns in…the Hill Leasow, along part of the close wherein William Childe had some cut, for the space of 24 yards .. in breadth and … 50 yards up the hill .. in length”. By 1728 two kilns had been built in the ¼ acre plot specified in the 1711 document. This was an extension of a quarry first opened by William Childe, perhaps the one recorded in 1663. It seems that during the late 17th and 18th centuries, the limestone outcrop was being divided into a number of small plots which were then sold or leased as quarries. At this date most of the limestone was destined for the kilns, for use on the land.

By the late 18th Century the quarries and kilns at Oreton and Farlow were flourishing. When the road from Bridgnorth to Cleobury was turned into a Turnpike Trust in the 1750s, a branch was extended from Bardley to Prescott, partly at least to reach the Oreton limeworks. In 1773, a farm at Kingswood, on the edge of the Wyre Forest in Kinlet was advertised as within easy reach of the “Clee Hill Lime works, where lime may be fetched by the same team twice a day.” There was even a proposal to link Oreton to the River Severn by a canal in 1794! The limestone was quarried along the entire outcrop from Farlow to Prescott and in 1782, seven separate owners of limestone rocks were listed. However, these owners sublet their lands to 13 different quarrymen suggesting the some of estates were subdivided into several smaller quarries. The same source also suggests that annual profit for a typical lime works was in the order of £10-£20. By itself, this would be a very modest income but it is likely that many lime masters also worked small holdings or had other businesses. It seems that with luck, these individuals could enjoy some prosperity.

In spite of its potential, it seems that up to this point the limestone had only been used for buildings in the close vicinity of the quarries. Shropshire as a whole is not short of building stone and, in spite of the turnpike, it would not have been economic to move Oreton stone any great distance. However, from the start of the 19th Century the use of “Clee Hill Marble” as a decorative stone grew and this found its way into mansions the other side of the hill, as at Downton Hall. This in turn may have encouraged more use of the ordinary stone. 19th Century adverts for the sale of quarries played heavily on the presence of the “marble”.

By about 1850 the limerock in Oreton was divided amongst seven proprietors and let to 8 or so individuals. It is not clear if quarries were still at work at Farlow or Prescott and the industry may have been showing some signs of decline. There were major changes over the next 50 years. The outlying quarries became worked out and were abandoned. Those that survived were concentrated around the New Inn at Oreton and by 1900 were largely operated by members of the Breakwell and Wellings families. In 1916 Thomas Wellings described how blasted down and burnt 25 tons of limestone a month by himself, sending much of his lime to a tannery in Bewdley. The glass works in Stourbridge are also said to have been big customers for Oreton lime at this time. There were still a few orders for building stone, particularly for the construction of the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway and, after the First World War, for Ludlow Roman Catholic church. In the Second World War, the American Army took large quantities of stone for roads for their camp at Kinlet Hall. The industry was kept alive in the 1950s by H. Jones, who had a small crushing plant in his quarry to the west of the New Inn. However, his death effectively brought an end to 200 years of commercial quarrying.

I would particularly like to thank John Derricutt, Fred and Madge Shineton and all others who have assisted me. I have used documents kept in the Shropshire record office; 6000/873, 6000/534 and 3320/30F as well as a copy Thomas Botfield’s memorandum book kindly leant to me by Dr Mark Baldwin, Cleobury Mortimer.