Clints Quarry is located
just off the A5086, a short distance North of Egremont. Cars can be
parked in a layby just next to the path that leads into the quarry.
Surrounding the central core of the Lake District is a ring of
rocks spanning the Carboniferous Period. These include the
distinctive Carboniferous Limestone, which forms the limestone
scenery of the Kent Estuary area and the Cumbrian part of the
Yorkshire Dales area around Kirby Lonsdale.
The landscape of Cumbria, and, in particular, the much loved
mountains and valleys of the Lake District, were shaped by the
enormous erosive forces of the glaciers and ice sheets of the Ice
Ages of the past 500,000 years. Huge amounts of material were
deposited by the ice sheets over the landscape leading to the
formation of the undulating and hummocky lower-lying ground around
the Lakes and the Pennines and resulting in very limited outcrop of
the underlying rocks in these areas.
The end of the Variscan mountain-building phase resulted in the
formation of a new land surface, on which the deposition of
sediments began again in the late Devonian or early Carboniferous
(354-290 million years ago) following the encroachment of the early
Carboniferous sea. In Northern England and southern Scotland, the
land over which the sea transgressed comprised a series of blocks
and troughs or basins. Greater thicknesses of sediment were
deposited in the troughs than over the blocks which tended to
remain as relatively stable, shallower, areas throughout the
Carboniferous. Much of Cumbria lay over what was then one of these
block areas and this influenced deposition during this
period.
Apart from the south-west Cumbrian coast, rocks of Carboniferous
age form a broad swathe of outcrop around the older core of the
Lake District. The oldest rocks of the area belong to the
Carboniferous Limestone Series. These rocks are composed of
limestones, sandstones and shales deposited in a shallow
marine-estuarine environment. The Carboniferous Limestone is
overlain by the Millstone Grit Series. This series consists of a
series of limestones, marine shales and sandstones, and the
‘Millstone Grit’ itself, thick coarse-grained
sandstones, siltstones and mudstones. These rocks were deposited in
the late Carboniferous (approximately 300 million years ago) in a
coastal environment where large river deltas were building out into
the shallow marine waters. Continuing deposition over the millennia
led to the further building out of the deltas and the formation of
an extensive low-lying, swampy land area in which the succeeding
Coal Measures were deposited.
Clints quarry's name relates to the large angular blocks of Lime
stone that can be seen tumbled around the foot of the cliff walls
and in the quarry basin, these are known as Clints or Clintz. The
quarry is thought to have begun its life in around 1638 as an
agricultural lime supply; the lime was used to improve the land
around Egremont as the area has thought to have been farmed in one
form or another for over 600 years by then. This was only a minor
operation until in the 1800's when the Lime stone was mined more
industrially to feed, along with the local iron ore, the emerging
steel industry.
The operator, from 1909, was the Workington Iron & Steel
Company (WI&SC) and prior to then, the old Moss Bay Iron &
Steel Company.
The quarry was connected to the Moor Row to Sellafield branch line
by a small branch served by Clints sidings signal box, which lay
246 yards south of Woodend Station signal box.
Thousands of tons of furnace stone were delivered by rail to
Workington blast furnaces on weekdays and the WI&SC had its own
tank engines to service the quarry branch. The Clints quarry, now a
nature reserve, closed in 1939.
To claim this earthcache you will need to perform four tasks:
1. Estimate the height of the cliff at N54 29.917 W3 32.007
2. Take photo of cliff and GPSr on nearby rock
3. At N54 29.836 W3 31.944 what colour is the rock, why do you
think it is this colour?
4. Finally, the limestone was probably formed under a shallow sea,
how many years ago?
Email the answers to the three tasks to me at the same time as you
log your find. Post your picture with your log. Any pictures of
fossils would be appreciated.
Please Note:- any logs which haven't met the criteria for this
earthcache will be deleted.