This is the Ancroft Limeworks, with photographs from April 2022 and March 2025. It's a really sizeable rural complex dating back to at least the 1850s. 170 years ago, this was the site of a large limestone quarry with kilns to burn into quicklime. To fuel this, there was also a coal pit on site to extract the resources required to control the production from beginning to end. From there the lime will have been used for fertiliser, as well as perhaps for local houses or the wider estate.

We know too that there was a 15 horsepower engine here, perhaps to pump the water out of the on-site colliery into the reservoir we still see today.

The land was surprisingly owned by the 3rd Earl Grey, Henry of Howick Hall, who was also the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies during its operations. As noted previously this site will have provided important resources for the farming and construction on the estates, though by 1865 it appears to have been taken over by a Mr T Crewther of Spittal who provided lime commercially.

By the 1890s this place was disused and the old quarry workings flooded. You'll see this is still the case today, and appears to be in use as a storage or metal yard.