Cowdale Quarry, England

Cowdale Quarry has been abandoned for 70 years, now slowly it is being reclaimed by the forest. Its concrete structures, once designed to process limestone into industrial lime, now stand forgotten and crumbling. Tapered concrete walls rise out of the overgrowth, reaching dramatically up above the treeline.

I have visited Cowdale Quarry several times over the years. The site changes dramatically with the seasons. In summer the concrete peeks out from the greenery, the ruins cloaked by trees and plants. In winter, the landscape becomes bleak and exposed, the grey limestone matching the moody skies For this gallery, I’ve chosen to share the summer photographs. The contrast of weathered concrete against nature I find the most beautiful!

History – From post-mediaeval use Use, to industrial-aged limestone quarry

The hills around Buxton are made of Carboniferous limestone. These rocks that underlie much of the Peak District provide a valuable resource, and its extraction dates back to at least the post-mediaeval period. Originally, small-scale lime burning served agricultural needs, producing quicklime to improve soil and for use in mortar. The particularly pure limestone in the vicinity of Buxton made this region a hotspot for quarrying.

By the 18th century, the process began to industrialise. The arrival of the Midland Railway in the 1860s accelerated this, offering an even more efficient avenue to move bulk material. By the 1870s, the first documented industrial limestone extraction around Buxton began. Thirteen quarry owners joined together, forming the Buxton Lime Firms in 1891. The seventeen quarries owned by the group produced 360,000 tons of limestone and 280,000 tons of lime per year.

In 1908, the Buxton Lime Firms acquired Cowdale Quarry and, by the following year, had built an industrial complex on the site. They laid a railway spur to connect the quarry to the main line, and they constructed a series of processing buildings along terraces cut into the hillside. The railway line that ran along the site would have linked to the Buxton Branch of the Midland Railway.

Cowdale Quarry Buildings and structures that survive today

My photos are shared in order, traversing the site from east to west. The buildings of the site along this route are;

• Gatehouse. A single-storey building built against the rock face, made of reinforced cast concrete and a flat slab roof. Tapered buttressing defines three bays and the building corners. The central bay holds the door and a single window; each adjoining bay has three large matching windows. A strip of dentilled decoration extends as a single uninterrupted feature across the front and sides of the building.
• Power house (no photos, demolished 2011). On the terrace above the gatehouse once stood the Power House. This prominent building would have been visible from the road, a dominant feature of the site with its two-storey central tower.
• Second Gatehouse. It shares a similar architectural style to the first gatehouse. This one sits atop a terrace, supported by a stone retaining wall.
• Limestone Kilns. The limestone kilns stand around 16m back from the former railway track. The reinforced concrete flying buttresses, added in 1931, provide additional support. The kilns are reached by two brick-lined arches, opening onto exposed rock faces. Each arch features four recesses, which hold the hoppers.

Closure of Cowdale quarry

Cowdale closed in 1954 and left to return to nature. Reportedly, it was the last Derbyshire lime site still using coal-fired shaft kilns. Many of the concrete structures, though stripped of equipment, remained intact.

Unusual Architecture – Egyptian Revival or Proto-Art Deco?

The architecture at Cowdale Quarry carries a strong aesthetic. Practical utilitarian reinforced concrete-constructed geometric structures, with a touch of style granted by dentilled lintels and tapered buttresses.

People often describe Cowdale as having Egyptian Revival, or Neo-Egyptian, influences. Egyptian Revival architecture first became popular in the early 19th century, after Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt and the engravings published thereafter. It then saw a Victorian-era resurgence in the 1880s, particularly in funerary and civic architecture. The style remained present in public and industrial buildings in the USA well into the late 19th century.

The main structures of Cowdale Quarry were built in 1909, between the Victorian revival and the better-known 1920s resurgence (the latter spurred by the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb). The fascination with Egypt at that time led to the integration of Egyptian forms into the emerging Art Deco movement popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Cowdale predates the major Deco movement by more than a decade.

It seems the geometric concrete buildings of Cowdale are certainly an intriguing hybrid. A combination of early 20th-century industrial modernism, a pinch of Egyptian Revival, and a foreshadowing of Art Deco.