Quarries · South East England
Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting
Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting — Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire, England.
Michael Dibb — CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons licence
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Plan your visit
- Typical visit
- 45 min–1.5 h
- Nearest railway station
- Melksham · 5.1 km
About
Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting is a quarry in the United Kingdom. Heritage designation: Site of Special Scientific Interest. Wikidata describes it as: "Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire, England". Coordinates: 51.3480°, -2.0918°.
Photo gallery
Protected designations
- Site of Special Scientific Interest: Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting SSSI
- Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Cotswolds
Designations sourced from Natural England open data under OGL v3.
From the Wikipedia article
Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting (grid reference ST937610) is a 3 acres (1.2 ha) Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Seend in Wiltshire, England, notified in 1965. The site contains facies of Lower Greensand containing specimens of fauna not found elsewhere. Mining rights were leased just below the Bell Inn before 1856 where 10,000 tons of iron ore were mined. The quarried brown hematite ore was then smelted in blast furnaces from 1860 by William Sarl with three furnaces fifty feet high, and employing 300 men. Iron smelting continued intermittently until the mid 1870s, after which only quarrying was carried on. The ironworks were dismantled by 1890. The ironstone continued to be extracted and shipped for smelting elsewhere until after World War I. From around the 1920s the iron ore was calcined at the site for shipping and its iron oxide used in purification plants for town gas. The works appear to have continued functioning into the 1960s.
Excerpt from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the source article linked in Sources below.
Background
History
The antiquarian John Aubrey wrote that he discovered iron ore as early as 1666 when it rained so much that it washed away the sand from the ore and the later bright sun reflected on it. He described the ore field as the richest he had ever seen. The smith could melt the ore in his forge, which wasn't possible with ore from the Forest of Dean. Aubrey says that the oak trees of Melksham forest, which once reached to the foot of the hill, were cut down in about 1634; there was thus not enough wood (for charcoal) to smelt it, and it remained unexploited until the 1850s. He also paid for a chemical analysis of many the ores (including a sample from Seend) which was published in a work by John…
Sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Coordinates
- 51.3480, -2.0918
- District
- Wiltshire
- Parish
- Seend
- Postcode
- SN12 6NH
- Parliamentary constituency
- Melksham and Devizes
- Nearest railway station
- Melksham — 5.1 km
Sources
- wikidata: Q14995524 (CC0)
- wikipedia: Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Frequently asked questions
- Where is Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting?
- Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting is in South-East England, United Kingdom (postcode SN12 6NH), in the parish of Seend.
- Is Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting a listed building?
- Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting is officially recognised as Site of Special Scientific Interest listed.
- Is Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting a protected site?
- Yes — Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting is part of the Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting SSSI Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Cotswolds National Landscape (AONB).
- How do I get to Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting?
- The nearest railway station is Melksham, about 5.1 km away. Drivers can navigate to postcode SN12 6NH.