SD8988 : Burtersett Old Quarry
taken 7 years ago, near to Burtersett, North Yorkshire, England
Situated on the north-eastern end of Wether Fell, the quarries worked the Yoredale sandstone. This is a thin-bedded stone which cleaves easily to make flagstones and roofing slates in particular. The bed is around 4.5 metres thick, and lies horizontally. As a result the workings were largely underground. Sometimes referred to as mines as a result, the official names were certainly 'Quarry'.*
There were two quarries, worked as separate entities. That to the west was Seavy Quarry (mapped in some scales by the OS incorrectly as Seary Quarry), that to the east was Old Quarry, the larger of the two in terms of the workforce employed. Quarry commenced in the late 19th century, probably around 1870, peaking around 1890, and the quarries finally closed in 1931.
Both quarries had at least two entries into the levels which were served by typical mine tramways, four of these still being visible today. A number of buildings associated with the dressing of the stone were situated close to the mouths of the levels. The finished products were taken by road to Hawes Station. The workings can be clearly seen on both the 1894 and 1912 editions of the OS 1:2500 mapping.
Together with the Hardraw quarry to the north west of Hawes, at its peak, local stone traffic by rail from Hawes amounted to 15000 tons per month. The surface remains at Burtersett are less intrusive than the volume of extraction would suggest as much of the waste was used to backfill the quarried space.
Information taken from the Yorkshire Dales NPA website 'Out of Oblivion' Link and David Johnson's book 'Quarrying in the Yorkshire Pennines' ISBN 9781445653679
*There appears to be no definitive answer to the question of whether this type of working for stone rather than minerals is a quarry or a mine.