Monument record MDR7578 - Warner Quarry, Roe's Lane, Crich

Warner Quarry supplied limestone to the Bullbridge lime kilns via the Butterley Gang Road from c. 1800 to 1933. (1) By 1792 a quarry had been made here by driving a horizontal tunnel through shale until it reached limestone after about a hundred yards. From the tunnel the stone was carried by rail in blocks of up to four hundredweight to the canal near Ambergate. The stone that was not loaded into boats at the wharf was burnt in the three lime kilns there. (2) Industrial scale working began by the Butterley Company in 1793 at the small Warner quarry in a small valley to the east of Crich village. These were accessed by a very early railway (initially a plateway), taking stone down to kilns at Amber Wharf on the newly opened Cromford Canal. The workings closed in 1933 and from the 1970s became a landfill site. (3) The building of the Strutts' grandiose home, Bridge Hill House in 1793-5 (demolished in 1931), is instructive in respect of building materials. Lime was drawn from Crich, notably at a date shortly after Outram's Butterley Company involvement there began. In the early part of the Industrialisation period, quarrying was heavily based on the requirement for lime, which represented a continuation, albeit on a much grander scale, of 'pre-industrial activity. As such, Crich had locational advantages over the main White Peak outcrop to the north west, in being closer to industrial markets. The involvement of the Butterley Company from 1791, initially at Warner Quarry was followed by the building of the Butterley Gangroad in 1793 to carry stone down to kilns (of which very little remains) on the Cromford Canal at Bullbridge and the later opening of Hilts Quarry [SDR 18421] a little to the west (also rail-linked to the same kilns). (4)