Out & About: Fritchley Mineral Line

It was back up to the Crich area this week to continue with tracing the old mineral lines around Fritchley.
When we parked up the sun was just bursting over the horizon bathing everything in beautiful warm light.
We walked down to the bottom of the village to see the best preserved part of the old incline.

Retaining wall of the Frichley Mineral Line

You can just see the lintol at the bottom of the wall. Presumably a walkway under the line.

The coping stones are old stone sleepers from the line

The earliest record of a mineral line in Crich is the old tramway constructed about 1793. This was a subsidiary of the Cromford Canal, the engineers being W. Jessop and J. Outram. The purpose of the tramway was to bring down lime stone excavated at the Old Hilts Quarry (now known locally as Newt’s Pond Quarry) to the canal at Bullbridge where the lime kilns were situated.

The mineral tramway was an unusual gauge (three feet ten inches), The track is now overgrown with weeds and bushes but several stretches can still be travelled. There is a short tunnel near Fritchley Green and the old engine house still stands near the Old Hat Factory, The line of the tramway and the site of the various Quarries can still be traced on the Ordnance Survey maps.
Some contradictory reports are riven of the various forms of transport used by the Butterley Company on this tramway, but-it is fairly certain that at first horses drawing five trams in both directions were the only transport.

Later two self-acting inclines were in use, one from the Old Quarry to the Hat Factory, the second from there to the Wharf and Lime Kilns at Bullbridge, horses being retained for use inside the quarry itself.

In 1813 one of Brunton’s walking steam locomotives constructed at Butterley Ironworks was tried out on this tramway, and it was decided to dispense with horses and use the machine in the quarry.

About 1850 the old Hilts Quarry was abandoned, and new Hilts Quarry, much nearer Crich, was opened out, this necessitated a third self-acting incline from the quarry to a junction with the tramway near the Hat Factory,

During the closing years of the 19th century the old quarry was again used to extract limestone with the two-fold purpose of obtaining as much mineral as possible and of keening the Kilns in work when difficulties arose in the new workings.

The Old Quarry began as an underground working and was later (1808) opened out leaving a short tunnel near the entrance. This tunnel is reputed to have been cut in boulder clay and become unsafe, so that it had to be opened up when it was renamed Klondike, the name giving a clue to the probable time that these events took place.

It is recorded that 30,000 tons of limestone were taken from the Hills Quarry in 1860, The tramway was finally closed in 1935. (Info from Garlic. S. L. "Further Notes on Crich")