Announcement Date: April 27, 2019
INDOOR & SURFACE – Following the AGM at Slaidburn Village Hall on April 27th myself and nine members did a surface walk to Jumbles Quarry.
The weather was overcast with occasional light showers but warm. Jumbles was one of the quarries used to supply Millstone Grit to the Stocks Reservoir project around 1924. An engineer called Harry Cottam was working for the Fylde Water Board on the project and was out with his family one day having a picnic and discovered the outcrop which is situated at “Greet Valley” Jumbles on Lamb Hill Fell. The stone is hard enough to be extremely resilient but soft enough to be easily worked.
To access the quarry a 3ft narrow gauge railway was extended from a nearby quarry to Jumbles and was 4.5 miles distance from the dam. This was used both to bring quarry workers and supplies to the site and take stone to the dam. A Smith & Rodley Ltd. steam crane was used for loading stones onto the rail wagons each carrying 8-10 tons of stone and aggregate for transportation to the dam and the stonemasons yard there. Many of the stonemasons were from the Merthyr Tydfil area of South Wales.
The quarry is situated approximately 5 miles from…
A full report can be found in the August 2019 newsletter…
