Description and History of Site:-
The quarry consists of a single opencast hole, now largely water-filled and of unknown depth, with working faces above the water line up to 20m high. The quarry was worked vertically down rather than horizontally except in its earliest days. The flooded hole operates as a leisure fishery. The remains of the tall stone-built support for a large waterwheel still stand near the old entrance to the quarry. No other structures remain - most were demolished when the site was abandoned and cleared in 1984.

The cottages next to the former primary school at Helwith Brdige were built by the quarry owners in the late 1930s/early 40s for its employees. In the 1870s the site - 'Sunny Bank Slate Quarry' - was worked by Christopher Brown 'and others' (TNA, n.d.) and after him by William and then Christopher Ralph of Victoria Street, Settle, who advertised their business as 'Blue Flag Merchants' turning out water cisterns, brewers' vats, liquid manure tanks, headstones, tombstones and monumental tablets. In 1881 it had 5 empoyees. In 1914 it was described as the only operational quarry at Helwith Bridge, employing a'few men'. The Ralphs sold out to Henry Whittaker in 1919 who sold it on in 1922 to William Dawson of Bingley which company gave up making flagstone products in favour of crushed stone, sending the crushed stone by lorry to Horton-in-Ribblesdale sidings.

It was sold again, to Albert Braithwaite of Leeds in 1938, trading as The Helwith Bridge Road-Stone Quarry Company which erected new crushing and screening plant in the 1930s and an overhead conveyor system over the Ribble to permit loading diretcly into rail wagons on a single-line siding. Later it became the Helwith Bridge Granite Company. In 1947 14 were employed here; in 1958 the siding was discontinued by British Railways so the conveyor system was re-aligned to load lorries on the west side of the river. In 1961 Braithwaites sold out to ARC which employed up to 40 men on site. In 1972 the company decided to concentrate its endeavours at its more profitable Ingleton Quarry and Helwith Bridge was closed down though ARC maintained a large workshop and garage for its fleet of trucks on what is now a parking area/picnic ground till that was cleared in 1984.

Further Reading and References:-
Lambert's Settle Almanac 1885 and 1897.
Craven Herald & Pioneer 30 June 1978
Settle-Carlisle Railway Journal March 2011, p. 33

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Key Words :- flagstone quarry disused

Viewing the Site :- open access under the CRoW Act 2000

Address :- Helwith Bridge, Horton in Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire
Grid Ref :- SD 810 692
Co-ordinates :- Lat 54.118312 , Long -2.292168
Local Authority :- Craven District Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site derelict - some buildings remaining
Site Dates :- unknown - pre 1850 - closed down 1972
Record Date :- 30 March 2016

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © David Johnson