Monument record 8456/1/6 - Finedon End Quarry Pit (aka The Wilderness)

{1} Further extensions to the system took place early in the C20th; about 25 acres were offered to Burton Ironstone in 1899, and in 1900 Staveley leased 900 acres of the estate of the Harpur family of Burton Latimer Hall, for 21 years. The former area was probably that south of the lane to Burton Wold, to which a tramway passed under the lane and then over a stream with quarry branches on both sides of the small valley. Quarrying commenced art faces on both sides of the lane bridge shortly after 1900 and continued along the valley sides, in Osborne’s Pit, north of the stream, and in Finedon End Pit to the south. Osbourne’s Pit (sometimes called Limekiln Pit) was closed in 1914 but the others continued to the end. The Finedon End Pit was also called The Wilderness locally; it was continually subject to flooding, and eventually the two small pipes under the embankment that carried the tramway over the stream were ranged on each side of a larger pipe.

<1> Tonks E., 1991, The Ironstone Quarries of The Midlands (History, Operation and Railways): The Kettering Area, p.16-20 (checked) (Book). SNN44039.

<2> Fisher, I., 2014, Archaeological geophysical survey of land north of Higham Road, Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire 2013 (Report). SNN110016.

<3> Horne, B (editor), 2016, South Midlands Archaeology (46), p. 38 (Journal). SNN111326.

Record last edited

Jan 23 2019 2:05PM