| Summary : The remains of the Kettleness alum works occupy a promontory projecting north into the North Sea, 7.5 kilometres northwest of Whitby. The works comprises quarries, an alum house plus associated processing and transport facilities. The works operated intermittently from 1727 to 1871 and was amongst the last alum works in the region to be opened and the last to close. Quarrying started at the northern end of the promontory and progressed southwards, creating by 1871 a north-facing working face up to 400 metres long and 50 metres deep, from which the grey alum shale was extracted. The first alum house lay on the foreshore in the south-east corner of Runswick Bay (NZ 81 SW 64) where there was also a staith (NZ 81 NW 66) for the offloading of coal and alkali brought in by sea and the export of the finished alum, and a number of workers' cottages. Alum house, staithe and cottages were all destroyed in a great landslip in December 1829, after which a new alum house (NZ 81 NW 65) was constructed within the quarry and the workers' housing moved to the cliff top south-west of the works (the present Kettleness hamlet); ships bringing in raw materials and taking away the alum simply beached in the bay where a number of rock-cut rutways (NZ 81 NW 68) guided carts along safe routes across the foreshore. Processing of the shale took place within the quarry, where calcining places, steeping pits, a liquor trough tunnel, various conduits and gutters, and a number of buildings, tracks and spoil heaps all survive. Between 1811 and 1871 cementstone doggers found within the alum shale were also collected and transported to the Mulgrave Cement Works at Sandsend. All remains within the quarry are scheduled, although those on the foreshore are currently excluded. A number of these features are visible as earthworks on air photographs. |
More information : [NZ 833 160] Kettleness Alum Works [NAT]. (1)
NZ 833 160. Kettleness Alum Works. Alum quarry in operation 1728-?1736; 1742-54; 1767-1861. Remains clearly visible. (2)
The remains of the Kettleness alum quarries and associated features situated on the promontory projecting north into the North Sea, 7.5 kilometres north-west of Whitby. The works comprises quarries, an alum house and associated processing features. The alum quarries and works were worked intermittently from 1728 to 1861 and were amongst the last alum works in the region to be opened and the last to close. The quarry was cut into the east and west sides of the promontory, creating a north-facing working face of up to 600 metres in length and 50 metres in depth, from which the grey alum shale was extracted. The quarrying started at the northern end of the promontory and progressed southwards. As the quarry floor expanded the alum house and processing activities were established on the ever increasing space in the quarry floor. At the foot of the quarry face is a terrace representing the last phase of quarrying. The first stage of processing was calcination, remains of which survive as areas of burned shale at the base of the quarry face. The next stage was steeping which occurred in stone-lined pits, some of which survive on the east side of the quarry floor. The raw liquor produced was sent to the alum house by timber channels known as liquor troughs which ran through a stone tunnel. The alum house stood on a level terrace on the west side of the quarry floor. Stone footings for the alum house and for a set of tanks on the terrace above are visible. Remains of other structures such as culverts, workshops, offices, stores and a laboratory are partly exposed and are also thought to survive below ground level throughout the area of the monument. Scheduled. (3)
The site is broadly as described by authority 3, except for the following. Documentary evidence shows that construction work began in 1727, with the first alum produced in 1728 or 1729. The works closed between circa 1735 and 1741, and again between 1755 and 1767, because fluctuations in the price of alum made it uneconomical. At this time the alum house was not located within the quarry, but stood close to the foreshore in the south-east corner of Runswick Bay (NZ 81 NW 64) where there was also a staith (NZ 81 NW 66) for the offloading of coal and alkali brought in by sea and the export of the finished alum. A number of workers' cottages were also incorporated within the alum-house complex. These buildings and the staith were all destroyed in a great landslip in December 1829, after which a new alum house (NZ 81 NW 65), whose footings still survive, was constructed within the quarry; the cottages moved to the present site of Kettleness hamlet, while ships bringing in raw materials and taking away the alum simply beached in the bay where a number of rock-cut rutways (NZ 81 NW 68) guided carts to and fro along safe routes across the foreshore. The landslip also affected the western end of the quarry face, which seems thereafter to have been avoided by the alum workers as too dangerous to work; the active quarry face is therefore only some 400m long east-west, not the 600m claimed. A number of tracks were terraced across parts of the slip to allow access between the cliff top, quarry and alum house, and between the alum house and foreshore; the upper track between Kettleness hamlet and the quarry still mostly survives, although severed at its top end by another large landslip in 1999, but the lower tracks are severely affected by cliff erosion and are disappearing rapidly. Other tracks survive within the quarry. A number of processing features also survive within the quarry, particularly calcining places, steeping pits (NZ 81 NW 67) - although these too are already partly destroyed by cliff recession - a liquor-trough tunnel, a stone gutter bringing water to the pits, a number of spoil heaps, and various conduits, tanks and buildings of unidentified function (contra authority 3). The alleged terrace at the foot of the quarry face does not exist: this area is at the same general level as the majority of the quarry floor. Documentary evidence does state that the shale was dug in a series of long terraces, thus giving the working face a markedly stepped appearance, but if any of these terraces remained when the quarry was abandoned they have since eroded to a steep talus slope.
There is also documentary evidence that cementstone "doggers" or nodules which occur naturally within the shale, began to be collected after 1811 for shipment to the Mulgrave Cement Works at Sandsend. Cementstone quarrying at Kettleness ceased in 1871 when the alum works closed, but a collapsing mine entrance (NZ 81 NW 71) visible in the quarry face at the level of the main cementstone dogger suggests mining trials were subsequently carried out on the seam. Sandsend Cement Works closed in 1935.
Surveyed as part of the EH: Kettleness Alum Works Survey. See report and plans in the NMR for further details. (4)
A number of these features are visible as an earthwork on air photographs, centred at NZ 833 160. The features cover an area of approximately 9.5ha. (5)
Additional references. (6-7)
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