Monument record MDR12156 - The Limekilns, Windley

It is unclear at present exactly when quarrying and/or lime burning started at the Limekilns, or when it finished. One limekiln was still almost intact, albeit long disused, in the 1950s, but was pulled down, together with a nearby cottage and 'Limekiln Farm' in or around 1960. Other limekilns shown on the 1st ed. 6" OS map had long since disappeared. The north-westernmost part of the site is shown as 'Ironstone Pits' on Sanderson's map of 1835. There are certainly several seepages of ochre running into the brook close by. This raises the question of whether there could once have been a furnace here. A [schematic] plan of 1707 shows names indicative of industry such as Kiln Closes and Fenton Pits. A note in the Mugginton Parish Register in 1738 states that limestone was sent from the close of land known as Brook Doles and that it was burnt there, and refers to an agreement for payment of a guinea per year to burn lime at Brook doles and to have a road to carry off the lime. Brook Doles can be identified from the Tithe Map as lying on the south side of the stream and is where the last identifiable limekiln was located. It is likely that digging and burning had been going on for some time before this. The amount of worked-over ground that remains is extensive, with vast heaps of spoil whose contents range from sizeable pieces of thin bedded limestone, some showing fossils, down to black crumbly shale. Some traces of the old limekilns can be seen and there are distinct hollow ways leading down towards the brook. There is a flat track along the floor of the large stone quarry in Butt Meadow which looks as if it may have had some sort of tramway for taking out the stone. The stone itself is not easy to use and appears to have been an inferior building material used for walls and in long runs of masonry in barns and sheds. Distribution of use shows that it was used as a locally available material for agricultural in the 18th and 19th centuries, possibly even the 17th century in one example. (1) Soil heaps and a dammed stream mark the site of former limeworks. (2)