Report - Halldale Quarry, Matlock, Derbyshire, June 2019

[HughieD]

1. The History
Halldale quarry is a former limestone quarry situated south-west of Matlock off Snitterton Lane. It was an important hard limestone abstraction source that served the construction industry throughout the Dales, South Yorkshire and Midlands providing both block stone and aggregate. Formed from a relatively level base section cut into a hillside, topographically, so that the Quarry forms a bowl of land, operations at the quarry creased around 25 years ago. The quarry is vast and contains a helicopter landing pad at its centre. The rock strata forms a series of three platforms and the quarry is well known to climbers, although Tarmac (the current landowner) does not officially permit climbing on the site. A variety of fossils can be found at the quarry including of Brachiopods, Crinoid stems and large Corals along with examples of marine Gastropods. Hence the quarry is equally popular with fossil-hunters.

In November 2014 plans that outlined the development of the quarry into a brownfield site were tabled. 4M Property Partners submitted plans to convert the quarry into mixed residential and commercial properties including 220 houses and to a restaurant and café. In addition, the planning proposal contained details of some 6,400m2 of office space.

2. The Explore
Bit of an unplanned explore this. Was returning from exploring elsewhere and in order to avoid the traffic jams of Matlock Bath and Cromford, decided to take the back roads around them. While skirting round to Matlock saw some bright yellow security boards in the woods to my left. So parked up and walked back to find a series of very overgrown buildings that were associated with the operation of the quarry. While they were nothing spectacular they were still worth a look. I then climbed up the path to be greeted by the quarry in its full glory. All-in-all nothing earth shattering (well, I guess the quarry was when it was in operation) but a nice little surprise wander.

3. The Pictures

General admin building:

img1521 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Matlock Quarry 04 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1530 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1531 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1533 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Matlock Quarry 01 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Obligatory old fridge shot:

img1532 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Stalactites!

img1529 by HughieDW, on Flickr

The toilet block:

img1528 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Stand up (supergloss is not a word that comes to mind with this picture!):

img1527 by HughieDW, on Flickr

or sit down:

img1526 by HughieDW, on Flickr

A couple of other buildings a bit back up the road:

Matlock Quarry 07 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1543 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1544 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Definitely stuck to their blue and white colour scheme:

img1548 by HughieDW, on Flickr

These steps look interesting:

img1535 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Wow! Some view:

img1536 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1537 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Fossil-hunter's heaven:

img1538 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1539 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1541 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img1542 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Matlock Quarry 06 by HughieDW, on Flickr

 

[Salad_Dodger]

Cracking report - I used to work in the quarry circa 1985. From memory it used to be a Derbyshire Stone quarry prior to Tarmac taking them over - that's probably where the blue and white colour scheme came from. The quarry closed as Tarmac ran out of space, they couldn't go further into the hill due to the boundary of Snitterton Road. Middle Peak and Dene quarries were still operating under capacity so it made sense to up production there. One other interesting fact - the reason there is so much greenery on the quarry floor is that just after quarry closed, Severn Trent (or the enviro agency???) were looking to dredge a section of the river Derwent either side of Matlock bridge to increase flood protection. Most of the dredging ended up being spread on the quarry floor.

 

[HughieD]

Cracking report - I used to work in the quarry circa 1985. From memory it used to be a Derbyshire Stone quarry prior to Tarmac taking them over - that's probably where the blue and white colour scheme came from. The quarry closed as Tarmac ran out of space, they couldn't go further into the hill due to the boundary of Snitterton Road. Middle Peak and Dene quarries were still operating under capacity so it made sense to up production there. One other interesting fact - the reason there is so much greenery on the quarry floor is that just after quarry closed, Severn Trent (or the enviro agency???) were looking to dredge a section of the river Derwent either side of Matlock bridge to increase flood protection. Most of the dredging ended up being spread on the quarry floor.

Cheers SD. That extra info is really interesting. Especially the bit about the dredging. Was thinking the quarry looked inexplicably green. That explains why.