tarboat's photos with the keyword: dove holes

Motor Rail 9543/1950 'Turbo Ted' heads a rare working on the short line at the Leander Architectural foundry in Dove Holes.

Tanker lorries parked alongside one of the subsidiary operations the Dove Holes Quarry at Peak Dale. N J Docksey specialises in the transport of bulk powders, the company’s dedicated tanks carry products ranging from sand and mortar to salt.

A load of limestone heads for the primary crusher at the Cemex owned Dove Holes Quarry. The drilling machine waits on the working bench behind.

Dove Holes quarry is operated by Cemex and ships out vast quantities of limestone by road and rail. The quarry is an amalgamation of the earlier Holderness and Newline quarries both of which have been lowered to the water table. Recent developments have seen the quarry expand northwards into the Bee Low area. There is a large area of fixed plant for crushing and screening the stone. The tipping dock for the primary crusher is lower left with the stone then being taken by conveyor to a stockpile under the gantry to the right of centre.

Dusting off the mould for a National Trust omega sign at the Leander Architectural foundry in Dove Holes.

Casting with aluminium at Leander Architectural in Dove Holes.

Casting plaques and signs in aluminium at the Dove Holes foundry of Leander Architectural.

At Dove Holes the proximity of the limestone to supplies of coal meant that an extensive limeburning industry developed in the seventeenth century. The lime was burned in large earthen kilns adjacent to the shallow quarries from which it was extracted . As the quarries move location it was easiest just to build another kiln alongside and this has led to extensive areas of quarries and kilns on both sides of the A6 just to the south of the village. This panorama shows just some of the limekiln landscape with remains dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Best viewed Large .

After photographing the train Buxton Spa Express at Middlewood, I drove up the A6 to Barmoor Clough just outside Dove Holes. Just a couple of minutes after I arrived on the bridge the train is seen bursting out of Barmoor Clough tunnel. The Peak Forest Tramway once ran on the land to the right of the wall in the foreground.

The constant stream of stone lorries on the A6 through Dove Holes still contains a good number of Foden built wagons. The numbers are dwindling though and I thought I would grab a shot of one passing by. Of course then all I saw were Scania and Volvo and after giving up this one appeared just as I was putting the camera away. In the ensuing fluster I managed to knock the switch to manual and horribly overexpose the shot. I have pulled a bit back in PS and that will have to do for today.

Samuel Bibbington operated quarries and limekilns around Dove Holes. His Victory Quarry was connected by a tramroad, running under the (now) A6 road, to a limeworks with a long bank of kilns alongside the railway just south of Dove Holes station. The quarry has been closed for many years and the limeworks site has been landscaped and planted with trees. This has not stopped the runoff of lime rich water from the waste tips and this now collects in this pool adjacent to the A6.

Having photographed the Buxton Spa Express as it passed Combs it was then a case of seeing whether I could get back to the car and traverse the single track road to Dove Holes in time for a second shot by the station. In the event it was a very close run thing. It took ages to climb the hill to the car and then at Dove Holes there was nowhere to park. The exhaust from the locomotive looked very close and I finally abandoned the car by the station bridge and dived into the crowd by the parapet. No time to think, just lens cap off and shoot! I suspect that the sunny side would have been too tight for a decent view so I am quite happy with the result here.