Querying castleton

The quarry has reached the road does anyone know what the plans are? Is it going to extend further?
It's very close to Peak Cavern! 400 meters?
 

martinb

Member
I assume you mean the road that loops round the back of Hope Valley Cement works? I drive that road regularly on my way to Castleton for caving, and they have 'peeled' back the top soil to within 20m+ of the road. As you drive round it is obviously terraced where they blast and remove the stone, as far as I can work out the face is about 100m from the road.

However, that is close to the 390m AOD mark, and the factory is at about 200m AOD, so they have a working face of 500 to 700m long x 150 to 200m deep x 100m to road, so a conservative estimate is 7.5million cubic meters of stone, plus whatever is terraced down towards the factory.

Good for a few years yet methinks.

As for within 400m of Peak - dunno. I know there has been problems with paper waste seeping in via Dirtlow Rake, just to the W of the quarry, and I think it ends up somewhere around Ink Sump, which I suppose is the closest bit of Peak to Dirtlow and the quarry.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
They were drilling boreholes around the Wet Rake area last year, and they have permission to take that when they want, as far as I know. I don't think they're allowed to go much closer to the road at present, but they'd certainly like to go over the road (or more likely under!) if the Peak Park allow it. That could be a risk to mines like Long Rake, but I think Moss Rake would be safe - and given how long it's taken them to get this far, none of us will need to be worrying about that.
 
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