The Great Lime-Eater...

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Well, here we are again in Shropshire. The journey down was slowed by the traffic on the A5, all the way to the border, but once past Chirk, it was OK. After a short break for a snack halfway, progress was pretty much as usual, and so we made a stop at Llanymynech to go and have a look at the old lime works heritage site there. We've visited the quarries on the opposite side of the main road there before, but had never ventured down to see the old kilns on the site. Pictured [Jane's excellent photo] is the interior of the very well preserved and restored Hoffmann Kiln, which was built around 1900, but which was already an obsolete design on completion. Nevertheless it was a serious piece of kit, reducing limestone to quicklime at a temperature of over 900ºC in its oval coal-fired ignition circuit: each section of the furnace lighting sequentially in the heat from the previous one. Ingenious and energy-efficient system though it was, you can't help feeling sorry for the poor underpaid buggers who had to feed and tend the beast... 

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 August 2025 at 08:19

    Just managed to sneak this onto a news site: "Wales has an embarrasment of sites like these that have absorbed monies (Used to be EU!) where the idiots see money being available and "Go For IT" discounting the effects that "Match Funding" has on the rest of their "development" budgets!
    I ran a joint PPI project that was "scuppered" when we produced a DVDROM showing the MANY empty sites & units that were empty! They broke my company!
    JHS"

    ReplyDelete

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