Report - The Lost Ganister and Clay Mines of Sheffield project: 2017 - to date: Part 4 - Loxley Valley and Stannington

[HughieD]

Wragg’s ex Drabble’s Fireclay mine at their Brookside Brick works. The brick works was off Stopes Road at Stannington directly opposite Dyson’s Griffs Works, it was a small works that closed around 1967? The clay mine was driven intp the Storrs hillside behind the works. I don’t think there are any remains left but my brother says there are some air vents on the fields. I’ve never checked.

Think I've spotted one of the air vents in a field over that way.

 

[Stannington Joe]

Stannington and gannister - although the main mineral workings were to get Fireclay from the Stannington Pot Clay Seam bed to the west of the village there were ganister quarries on the east side towards Hillsborough.

There was a small quarry at Lttle Matlock across Greaves Lane from the Robin Hood pub - it became a scrap yard and was later filled with earth with the cars still buried there! There is a fence preventing access now.

Lower down Greaves Lane there was a larger gannister quarry on the Loxley side called Broadhead Flats Colliery. There might have been two sites. These were operated by the Cotterill family from 1925 to, I think, 1967. There may have been coal there but the main output was ganister - there’s a photograph of the workforce in the Stannington Local History Group photo collection. There is some remains of a loading bank there but the rest of the site is grassed over or built upon.

There was a big gannister quarry off High Matlock Road. It occupied the area bounded by Cliff Road, Acorn Hill and High Matlock Road. It was opened around 1934 and was operated by the Siddons family until c.1980?

I lived nearby and clearly remember that there were 2 grinding pans in a big corrugated iron roofed building. The grinding and milling started at 7.30 in the morning and went on till about 4. In the late afternoon there was some blasting to get rock ready for excavation and haulage next day to the jaw crusher and grinding plant. There was a small narrow gauge rail track holding 10 or 12 side-loading v-skip rail trucks - they were loaded with the ground ganister siliceous ‘compo’ wet mix from the mill and held there until a fleet of small Bedford tipper trucks could take the material off to the Sheffield steelworks and further afield. There’s no sign of the quarry now as the High Matlock estate has been built on the site - except where the quarry edge is exposed behind the houses on the west (top) side. There’s a footpath runs along that quarry edge from Cliff Road to Acorn Hill - it is fenced off but that fence is within inches of the quarry edge and one wonders how they’ll replace it when it rusts away! I’ve been unable to find any photographs of the quarry. The Siddons family also operated a quarry at Studfield Hill, Wisewood. These quarries were somehow missed by Ray Battye in his excellent book ‘The Forgotten Mines of Sheffield’ - I asked him about the omission - he said you had to draw a line somewhere and that area got left out.

 

[HughieD]

Stannington and gannister - although the main mineral workings were to get Fireclay from the Stannington Pot Clay Seam bed to the west of the village there were ganister quarries on the east side towards Hillsborough.

There was a small quarry at Lttle Matlock across Greaves Lane from the Robin Hood pub - it became a scrap yard and was later filled with earth with the cars still buried there! There is a fence preventing access now.

Lower down Greaves Lane there was a larger gannister quarry on the Loxley side called Broadhead Flats Colliery. There might have been two sites. These were operated by the Cotterill family from 1925 to, I think, 1967. There may have been coal there but the main output was ganister - there’s a photograph of the workforce in the Stannington Local History Group photo collection. There is some remains of a loading bank there but the rest of the site is grassed over or built upon.

There was a big gannister quarry off High Matlock Road. It occupied the area bounded by Cliff Road, Acorn Hill and High Matlock Road. It was opened around 1934 and was operated by the Siddons family until c.1980?

I lived nearby and clearly remember that there were 2 grinding pans in a big corrugated iron roofed building. The grinding and milling started at 7.30 in the morning and went on till about 4. In the late afternoon there was some blasting to get rock ready for excavation and haulage next day to the jaw crusher and grinding plant. There was a small narrow gauge rail track holding 10 or 12 side-loading v-skip rail trucks - they were loaded with the ground ganister siliceous ‘compo’ wet mix from the mill and held there until a fleet of small Bedford tipper trucks could take the material off to the Sheffield steelworks and further afield. There’s no sign of the quarry now as the High Matlock estate has been built on the site - except where the quarry edge is exposed behind the houses on the west (top) side. There’s a footpath runs along that quarry edge from Cliff Road to Acorn Hill - it is fenced off but that fence is within inches of the quarry edge and one wonders how they’ll replace it when it rusts away! I’ve been unable to find any photographs of the quarry. The Siddons family also operated a quarry at Studfield Hill, Wisewood. These quarries were somehow missed by Ray Battye in his excellent book ‘The Forgotten Mines of Sheffield’ - I asked him about the omission - he said you had to draw a line somewhere and that area got left out.

Once more, thank you for all this. Absolutely fascinating stuff. There are a few things that Ray Battye missed out of his book, but like he says, you have to draw the line somewhere!

 

[Stannington Joe]

I find it an interesting topic and an under- published area. Thankfully, Ray Battye opened up the subject. I’m partway through writing a memoir on the local casting pit refractory industry. I’ve got a lot of photos plus family memories - my grand-dad worked as a blacksmith at Dyson’s - he’s on their 1935 photo of the workforce and staff. My dad worked at Wragg’s all his life. I worked at Dyson’s for a few years before working for GR-Stein from 1975-1983 before leaving the industry entirely. I got interested again when I went into the local library in Stannington and found that the 3 volunteer staff hadn’t heard of Dyson’s. And there was little on the shelves about the industry - an industry that had been in business from 1810 to c.2008. And employed 1000s of people over the years at the 3 local works. So I started researching… not finished yet!

 

[HughieD]

I find it an interesting topic and an under- published area. Thankfully, Ray Battye opened up the subject. I’m partway through writing a memoir on the local casting pit refractory industry. I’ve got a lot of photos plus family memories - my grand-dad worked as a blacksmith at Dyson’s - he’s on their 1935 photo of the workforce and staff. My dad worked at Wragg’s all his life. I worked at Dyson’s for a few years before working for GR-Stein from 1975-1983 before leaving the industry entirely. I got interested again when I went into the local library in Stannington and found that the 3 volunteer staff hadn’t heard of Dyson’s. And there was little on the shelves about the industry - an industry that had been in business from 1810 to c.2008. And employed 1000s of people over the years at the 3 local works. So I started researching… not finished yet!

This exactly. Spoken to quite a few Sheffield-based people who didn't know what gannister is. If Ray hadn't have done his book the industry would have been even more obscure, for sure.