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| Location | |
|---|---|
| Country | Wales |
| Production | |
| Products | Lime |
| History | |
| Opened | 1852 |
| Active | 1852-1972 |
| Closed | 1993 |
| Owner | |
| Company | North Wales Wildlife Trust |
The Minera Limeworks were extensive lime quarries and kilns at Minera in Wrexham, Wales. It was located at grid reference SJ253520 , near the villages of Gwynfryn, Minera, and Coedpoeth and was locally referred to as The Calch. [1]
The Minera Limeworks were once the largest lime workings in the north of Wales. Limeburning at Minera is recorded from as early as 1620 [2] but the Minera Lime Company was established in 1852. The total output from the Minera area quarries was estimated, in 1859, to be around 300,000 tons, with 200,000 tons of this converted to lime.
The Minera Lime Company became a limited company in 1865, and this prompted some heavy cash injection into the works. Using this money, the company erected a "Hoffmann kiln". Originally destined for brickmaking, it was soon converted to limeburning. This kiln still exists and is one of three that were purpose-built for lime burning left in the UK: another is located at Langcliffe in Yorkshire, another is located at Llanymynech Limeworks.
The quarries had their own steam locomotive and hundred of open coal wagons and closed lime wagons at its peak. Hornby Railways and Dapol both have model wagons detailing the Minera Lime Co. It also had extensive kilns, still there to this day. The works closed in 1972 and the Wrexham and Minera Branch railway lines were pulled up at around the same time.
Blasting and quarrying of limestone, used for road building materials, continued at the site until 1993.
For many years since closure, the quarry served as storage for road building materials, and a tipple for them was built, but was soon abandoned. In 2004-05 the quarry was subject to a cleanup operation, where all the materials were taken and the whole area flattened. Tarmac (a supplier of materials to the building trade) who had taken interest in the site took several core samples and found the quarry to still be a viable source of lime.
Lafarge Aggregates owned the site until recently, following their take over of Redland plc and erected large amounts of fencing around most of the site as well as signage advising to stick to signed footpaths, restricting movement around the quarry for health and safety purposes. Lafarge had no interest in resuming quarrying operations at the site here.
The Minera Quarry Trust [3] negotiated with Lafarge about the future of the site. Minera Quarry Trust was established in 2005 with the explicit aim of conserving the former quarry site for the benefit of the public. Since then the trust has made significant progress in developing a plan of action for the site that encompasses both short term improvements and long term sustainability for the site. The Trust worked in partnership [4] with North Wales Wildlife Trust to develop the project and received political endorsement from Wrexham County Borough Council.
North Wales Wildlife Trust purchased the site for £1 from Tarmac, who also donated £100,000 so work could be carried out to make the site safe for public access. [5] The site was officially opened on 2 June 2018 by Mike Dilger as their 36th Wildlife Reserve in North Wales.
The quarry contains entrances to the important caves Ogof Dydd Byraf and Ogof Llyn Du whose passages come very close to Ogof Cefn-y-Gist and Ogof Llyn Parc. [6] starting in the quarry linked to many underground rivers.
Clwyd is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east corner of the country; it is named after the River Clwyd, which runs through the area. To the north lies the Irish Sea, with the English ceremonial counties of Cheshire to the east and Shropshire to the south-east. Powys and Gwynedd lie to the south and west respectively. Clwyd also shares a maritime boundary with Merseyside along the River Dee. Between 1974 and 1996, a slightly different area had a county council, with local government functions shared with six district councils. In 1996, Clwyd was abolished, and the new principal areas of Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham County Borough were created; under this reorganisation, "Clwyd" became a preserved county, with the name being retained for certain ceremonial functions.
The North Wales Wildlife Trust (NWWT) is the Wildlife Trust for North Wales. Established in 1962, it covers the vice counties of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, Merionethshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire with over 4,500 members. It is a registered charity and a member of the Wildlife Trusts Partnership with the head office being located in Bangor and its eastern office located at Aberduna nature reserve, Flintshire.
Coedpoeth is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. The built-up area with Minera had a population of 5,723 in the 2011 census.
The Wrexham and Minera Railway or Wrexham and Minera Branch was a railway line in North Wales between the city of Wrexham, the village of Brymbo where it served the Brymbo Steelworks, and the lead mines and limeworks at Minera. A further branch ran from Brymbo to Coed Talon, where it connected with lines to Mold. The system was constructed in several stages between 1844 and 1872, while the various lines making up the system closed in 1952, 1972 and 1982.
The Minera Lead Mines were a mining operation and are now a country park and tourist centre in the village of Minera near Wrexham, in Wrexham County Borough, Wales.
Minera is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It adjoins the village of Coedpoeth.
Bersham Ironworks were large ironworks at Bersham, near Wrexham, Wales. They are most famous for being the original working site of John Wilkinson. They were also the first site in the world to use a new way of boring holes in cannon and steam engine cylinders.
Aberthaw Cement Works are cement works in the Vale of Glamorgan near the village of East Aberthaw in Wales.
The Ruabon Moors are an area of upland moorland in Wales to the west of Ruabon and Wrexham. They lie partly within Wrexham County Borough and partly within Denbighshire.
Penwyllt is a hamlet located in the upper Swansea Valley in Powys, Wales, lying within the Brecon Beacons National Park.
The Hoffmann kiln is a series of batch process kilns. Hoffmann kilns are the most common kiln used in production of bricks and some other ceramic products. Patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann for brickmaking in 1858, it was later used for lime-burning, and was known as the Hoffmann continuous kiln.
Esclusham Mountain is an area in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, United Kingdom, and is part of the Ruabon Moors. It rises to a height of 460 m, with the nearby spur of Cyrn-y-Brain, to the west, reaching 473 m. It lies mostly within the community of Esclusham. A smaller spur to the north, known as Minera Mountain, is within the neighbouring community of Minera.
Ogof Dydd Byraf is a cave which extends under Esclusham Mountain in north-east Wales from its entrance in the south face of the Minera Limeworks quarry. It was originally discovered and explored in 1964 by the Wrexham Caving Club, before they were merged into the North Wales Caving Club.
The Holy Island Waggonway was a network of waggonways across the island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland, England.
Lafarge is a French industrial company specialising in three major products: cement, construction aggregates, and concrete. It was founded in 1833 by Joseph-Auguste Pavin de Lafarge and a part of the Holcim Group.
Richard Kyrke Penson or R. K. Penson was a Welsh architect and artist.
Brockham Limeworks is a 45-hectare (110-acre) nature reserve north of Brockham in Surrey. It is owned by Surrey County Council and managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust. Part of it is a Scheduled Monument, and it is part of the Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.
This article describes the geology of the Brecon Beacons National Park in mid/south Wales. The area gained national park status in 1957 with the designated area of 1,344 km2 (519 sq mi) including mountain massifs to both the east and west of the Brecon Beacons proper. The geology of the national park consists of a thick succession of sedimentary rocks laid down from the late Ordovician through the Silurian and Devonian to the late Carboniferous period. The rock sequence most closely associated with the park is the Old Red Sandstone from which most of its mountains are formed. The older parts of the succession, in the northwest, were folded and faulted during the Caledonian orogeny. Further faulting and folding, particularly in the south of the park is associated with the Variscan orogeny.
The Clwydian Range and Dee Valley is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and proposed national park, located in north-east Wales, covering the Clwydian Range, and the valley of the River Dee. Designated in 1985 as the Clwydian Range AONB, and expanded to its current form in 2011, the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty includes: medieval field systems, open heather moorland, prehistoric hillforts, limestone crags, broad leaved woodland, wooded valleys, and farmland. In 2018, an estimated 1.1 million people visited six key sites across the AONB, generating approximately £24.1 million to the Welsh economy, according to Natural Resources Wales. The AONB falls within the jurisdiction of the local authorities of Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Wrexham County Borough, with the majority, 80% of the AONB in Denbighshire, and the remaining 20% split evenly between the other two authorities. The AONB is the largest of only five AONBs in Wales, and one of the 46 in the United Kingdom. Additionally, it is one of only 8 protected areas of Wales. Long-distance footpaths; Offa's Dyke Path, and the Clwydian Way pass through the AONB. The area of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB is 390 km2 (150 sq mi), and has been proposed by the Welsh Government to become Wales' fourth national park.
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