James... No access from inside furnace bank... nothing behind the blowing arch.

tater24... Your comments/stories gratefully received and your support... The listing does not protect anything other than the 2 buildings mentioned in this post... whilst locally its recognised as important, it's English Heritage that needs persuading or a scheme that incorporates all the stone buildings found. I am writing to Amber Valley again tomorrow for a progress report on how they are going... failing that I think Sougher, J4M35 and I will need to do some door knocking with Central TV, Derbyshire Times, Derby Evening Telegraph and Ripley and Heanor etc to try and get the profile of the site raised. Cawarden have been brilliant and believe the stone buildings are safe for now but ultimately it will come down to getting support to save all the remaining stone stuff....
Enjoyed the remiscinces ... all fascinating stuff!! :thumbsup:

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I forgot to mention i rang the ripley and heanor today and told a reporter all about the situation.he said that he drove past the site everyday and it wasnt being torn down.jerk.i told him to slow down and open his eyes! but that just shows that hardly anyone is aware of the complete closure and subsequent demolition of the site or what will happen to it. anyway,i bombarded him with loads of issues about the site,mostly going on my own feelings and also what i'd read when i found this forum last night.he said he would look into it and get a story together,and would get back to me.hope something happens from that.i take it you have you got access to the site then? wouldnt mind another guided tour,albeit it wont be as memorable as when i went before when it was in full production.possibly get some more photos,information etc?? have got full site experience and h&s knowledge and gear if owt comes off anyway 😉. i will update more with info tomorrow hopefully if i see my grandad. 🙂

Cripes there will be a queue at this rate... leave it with me and I will ask... I know J4M35 wants in too! Cawarden have been exempliary in all of this... simply doing their job and we have to understand that regardless of our views that the workshops are finished. We need Cawarden on side and AVBC to save what remains...

I just sent off another letter to AVBC..

Who did you contact at Ripley & Heanor as i will follow it up as well.

Then its onto English heritage... Sougher I think its time to get things moving a bit with a full letter to them!

Any how going bed now... stay in touch all. :zzz:

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Iclok - yes, of course I'll help, even though I live over two hundred miles away, and have great problems in hearing anyone on the telephone - I'll leave the phoning to you (apologies for not hearing you very well the last time you rang - bl..dy NHS hearing aids, I'm now back to my private ones) but will assist you in any way I can with sending letters, being a former Local Government officer I know my way around the system. As my dad, who as you know was a Printer's Compositor, always said "the pen is mightier than the sword" and through my life I have found this to be true, especially the sending of letters over emails and telephone calls; government and local authorities, institute bodies, individual people etc., can always deny having received phone calls and emails, but not letters. First we need to decide upon the basic layout of a letter, what exactly we are trying to save on the site and then our reasons for doing so. This gives us unity in what we're writing about so we don't cause confusion. Secondly we have to draw up and agree a list of who we want to contact, and then send out our letters or emails - please remember anyone who helps the campaign to keep a copy of all letters posted, print off copies of any emails sent, and keep a date of all phone calls sent or received, this is our evidence should ever a Public Enquiry be needed.

This is a very important industrial archaeological site, like I've said in the recent private emails that I've bombarded you with, people just don't realise what Butterley manufactured and how important the site is. One of the last large items it produced must have been the fabrication of the steel work for the Spinnaker Tower erected at Portsmouth Dock Yard, at 170 metres high it is the highest public accessible building in the UK, will put up website details later if anyone is interested.

Don't forget that the Gate House (which you've previously mentioned as being a Listed Grade 2 building) was the scene of the LAST REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND in about 1816 when the revolutionaries stopped to try and obtain arms here, as they marched en route from the village of Pentrich, very close by Ripley, on their way to Nottingham. More about that on a later posting if anyone is interested.

Sorry for lack of recent contact (also Gwyn and AR) but have got a very bad finger which being a touch typist is inhibitating me in typing and doing things. However, contact me when convenient to you and I will support you as best I can, and hopefully a few more AN members will as well. If we agree on action, the sooner we start the better. Good Luck with your campaign :thumbup:

Has anyone thought of involving the AIA or the local branch of it? As they say every little helps and the more voices involved :guns: :guns:


http://www.industrial-archaeology.org.uk/acontacts.htm 

Local branch
http://www.derbyshireas.org.uk/ 

Mike

i was told by a retired worker there was a pond on site ( it could have been on the first phase of building ) where pieces of work that were wrongly cut were disposed of . surely a few sighs of relief when the scrapman waded in there , then

Ty Gwyn...
I have seen curved flanged L section plates cast to specific radii... never seen one in the flesh. This system was mostly first credited to John Curr whose standardised fixed panel plateway system was tried through the streets of Sheffield at one point.

neonpike...
There is a pond part way up the old incline to the upper works... hmm wonder whats in there then?

mike..
already trying Dudley Fowkes from AIA, he's the local chap..

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The listing does not protect anything other than the 2 buildings mentioned in this post... whilst locally its recognised as important, it's English Heritage that needs persuading or a scheme that incorporates all the stone buildings found. I am writing to Amber Valley again tomorrow for a progress report on how they are going...

I thought Amber Valley had confirmed that all of the stone buildings were safe because two were listed and dated pre 1948 it meant that all pre 1948 buildings within the curtiledge were in fact also protected?

Just a thought. Has anyone seen the actual planning application and consents for the demolition of this industrial site, and the proposed development (presumably for housing) that will be built on the site? If so, has the approved planning consent got outline or detailed consent? If detailed consent has been granted have the two Listed 2 stone buildings been incorporated into the detailed plans as a feature of the site? Similar to a small new housing estate centered on Sough Lane, Wirksworth, where Merebrook Sough's Engine House was retained and is a feature of the estate. Iclok you visted this estate and told me about it, so you do have experience of this type of development, I only saw it from the main road. If only outline planning consent has been granted, then you've a chance to monitor the application from the start at AVBC offices, as the plans will have to be advertised in the local paper every time an application is made.

If the two stone buildings on the site are already listed as Listed Grade 2 buildings then English Heritage should already be aware of this fact.

Yes it has... but that does not prevent someone applying for planning permission and fighting it on the grounds that their plans to use the site would be unduly spoiled by the curtlidge buildings.... which they can argue..! Only the two listed would survive. I don't think the council will want abandoned buildings on its books just to get them out of the contractors ownership unless there is a scheme to save them which is cost neutral to them..

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Everyone look in the Derby Evening Telegraph around christmas... I've done a big article, and it includes some photos I took inside the buildings on a day I took off work especially for it (I got permission of course) :guns:

Good as gun sights trained on english Heritage next so good supporting stuff chap! Look forwards to it. 🙂

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Yeah, should hopefully be good, it's about 1000 words, mainly on the history but with a good bit about the demolition and some pictures.

iclok when i rang the rip and heanor i was so busy i got the guys name,but subsequently forgot and was going to ring back today,and didnt have time so will definitely do so tomorrow and will get his name to you in due course.spoke to my grandad tonight,like i said he was away fighting during the war,but did alot of brickwork and building,as i mentioned previously,in and around the site in the post years of the war and he never heard of a messerschmitt or spitfire being left on the site,or,indeed,being bricked up in a bay anywhere,as he said he and only a couple more builders/brickies were the only ones on site and if a job like that needed doing they would have done it.(the building firm he worked for was knowlsons of ripley,sadly another firm that is no more) I mentioned that i'd read on here that they could be under the new houses in the old stockyard,and he said he didnt know anything about that,but doubted they would be.i suppose no one will know now??? i also asked him about some engines being dumped in heage from royce's and he said thats got to be bunkum,as metals and mechanical things were drained after so much war production,and with the country being in so much debt (and still is!) they couldnt afford to just dump engines just like that.
dont know if you have heard about the cromford canal society wanting to totally restore the full length of the canal? would be great if they did and included the tunnel and underground wharf.would make a fantastic tourist attraction! hope you lot get some joy with AVBC,and ultimately english heritage.cant wait to see the feature in the telegraph,especially if there wil be pics of the works when they were in full steam so to speak.

I dont believe the engines in the old mines at Heage either but I must admit the Crich Quarry one is true by all accounts... I've seen stuff out of there!

Can you send me your Email address on a PM so i can send you the map showing the shafts to the loading dock?

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re engines in mines ......i,m sure like a lot of companies and engineering firms , at the end of the 2nd war , rolls royce would be left with many unfinished items ( engines ). i presume they would be government contracts . and it would seem logical that the engines would be sent to be scrapped . but parts sales would be affectected if the engines found their way to dealers who would re-sell spares . and RR themselves probably wouldnt be geared up to dismantle them , to then try to sell the used parts

Responded to your PM.... this should answer all your tunnel wharf questions...

Your theory on the engines is probably bang on... its happened before... remember the gov't paid for war manufacturing on a set order basis so RR would have got paid regardless.

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Ty Gwyn... just as a brief sojourn away from Outram and Butterley, the other guy I mentioned before was John Curr who was born in County Durham (maybe Greenside) in 1756. By 1776 he was working at the Duke of Norfolk's Sheffield collieries. He had an entire designed plate rail system with cast turn outs and loops... this was the system he tried in the streets of Sheffield from Park Colliery. He was also an expert Newcomen engine builder and played a key role in the development of Sheffields Collieries!
It is claimed that he invented the L section plate rail system but iron L plates were certainly known back as far as 1776 so who knows? There were certainly Iron rails back in 1767.

His track is as below-

🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-44523[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-44523[/linkphoto][/link]

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just found more info about the tunnel on the web.there is some pics of the tunnel inside.(not many but more detailed than a book about the canal ive got)i used to go walking past the east end portal,not been down there for a while.anyway search 'butterley tunnel' on wikipedia or google.would be good to find out who tina corden is and what she knows.neonpike makes sense to me now,dont suppose my grandad would have thought of the govt order stuff when i was talking to him,although he probably did know about things like that,he was in the royal engineers and pretty clued up.as i say he's 91 now! although i didnt know about that sort of stuff.i came past butterley this afto,they've started tearing down big shed alongside butterley hill.i cant get my head round it.it shouldnt be happening. 😞 im going up in the morning ,take some more pics and filming. (will get that reporters name tomorrow,not had time again today)

I'm in as a guest of Cawarden at 0800 in morning to film and photo actual demolition/scrapping close up... doing them an action set of their tall machine in action and of course some for myself. Will ask the manager if I can organise a vist for you and J4M35.... wish you could just turn up with me but that will be pushing my luck with them and thus far as I keep saying they have been remarkably tolerent.

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