An portal to another world? It certainly looked like it as I passed, the steam rising with a gathering storm.
It is a different world down there. Hartley Quarry, which I have been told produces limestone aggregate. The colour looks like that at the 'portal' but the colour of the quarry is not as expected. The brown pigment apparently is due to iron compounds. Like most of the quarries in Cumbria it burrows amongst the hills. Looking down the valley, it sits above the village of Hartley
which now runs into the larger place of Kirkby Stephen. In earlier times (the quarry opened in the 1920s) a klaxon used to sound when they were blasting but now I think there must be just a
red flag hoisted. In those olden times a rail connection used to run to the quarry. Eventually the line closed but the 6 miles to the quarry remained and became their responsibility. By 1967 the metals running to the quarry deteriorated and were considered not strong enough to hold the weight of a British Rail steam locomotives and they were stopped.
This photo was taken in 1966 of one of the last runs to Hartley Quarry, showing a freight carrying Ivat 4MT locomotive. Nowadays of course lorries carry the aggregate on the road from the quarry, wonder if some of those loads will end up as roads.
Quoth I take a trip across to
ABC Wednesday to see lots more words starting with
Q
