>Back in England, the only ropeway I know still working is at Claughton,
near Lancaster. It appears to bring clay down from a hillside quarry some
mile and a half away to a brickworks, crossing over the A683 in the process.
On the ropeway at the Claughton Manor Brickworks - I was talking to the
manager a couple of years ago and if it wasn't for the fact that they are on
the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) the ropeway would
have been replaced by a conveyor system or roadway years ago. I understand
that Lancashire County Council, or the local district, have activily
encouraged the retention of the ropeway which, perhaps fortunately for the
industrial archaeology, only supplies a small proportion of the clay
required - all of which is man-handled from the buckets into the hoppers at
the base station. As the manager said, here was a state of the art
brickworks, one of the most modern in Europe, fed by 1920s technology.
Peter
______________________________________________
Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
(Centre for South Western Historical Studies)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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