History of Pilkington Quarry Revealed
A little more history behind our Pilkington Quarry was revealed today as we came across a brilliant article dated over 100 hundred years ago!
Below is the transcript from an article dated 1888 illustrating the extraction of stone from our Pilkington Quarry in Horwich.
Pilkington Quarry covers 53 acres near the town of Horwich and was operational for over one hundred years.
Pilkington 1 is exhausted but carries permissions to receive 2m tonnes of inert waste, whilst Pilkington 2 is as yet unmined but carries a pale buff/brown, highly durable gritstone.
The Article below reads as following:
“The manufacturer and Builder 1888
A Huge Stone
There was recently cut out from the Pilkington quarry, Harwich, England, in one piece, without crack or flaw, a great block of stone weighing upward of thirty five tons.
The dimensions are 14 ½ feet in length, 6 feet high, and 5 feet 3 inches wide.
The removal of this huge mass from its bed in the quarry to its destination- a bleach works in Bolton, a distance of seven miles over rough, hilly road- was successfully accomplished in the manner shown in our illustration, by the phoenix steam and boiler company, of Bolton, under the direction of H. W. Rushton. The London Engineer remarks it is said to be the largest block of stone ever quarried in England”
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