Bygone Burnley: The Culvert and lime kilns

Bygone Burnley: The Culvert and lime kilns, with historian Roger Frost MBE 02-12-24

Transcript

00:00We're in Burnley Centre, near the culvert, in fact behind the culvert, and we are standing

00:08in front of Burnley's lime kilns of 1799. When the canal was opened it came through

00:19areas of the country that were predominantly limestone, and at Barn Oswick, at Rainhill,

00:27there were huge deposits of limestone which were quarried, brought along the canal to

00:35Burnley, and Burnley was the point where they built these huge kilns. You can only see a

00:42part of them now, but we'll show you a picture of them as they were at the beginning of the

00:4720th century. The lime came to Burnley because Burnley was

00:52expanding. Burnley was slightly later than other towns in developing industrial revolution

00:59activities, but mills were being built, new houses were being built, and they needed lime

01:06for the cement, they needed lime for the plaster, needed lime for the lime wash. Lime was used

01:13for all sorts of building purposes in the past, and it's still an important commodity

01:20for the building industry. At Clitheroe there are huge deposits which are used by builders

01:29and constructors all over the north of England. We're at the culvert in Burnley, standing

01:38on top of the culvert, which was built originally in 1797-8, but was rebuilt after changes that

01:50took place in the 19th century in 1926. We've got pictures of that to show you, but also

01:58we're on the canal bank at the beginning of Burnley's famous embankment. It's the biggest

02:05embankment in the country. It's embanked on both sides, and it was built to keep the

02:13canal at the same level as it crossed the River Calder. In another program we're going

02:20to talk about the embankment in more detail, but it was a significant development for the

02:27town. When it was constructed, together with the culvert where we are now, there were hundreds

02:33of workmen, all using hand implements, no power tools whatsoever. Altogether about 500,000

02:45square yards of soil and stone was used to build the Burnley Embankment. It's now one

02:56of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways, and it has spectacular views on summer days right

03:03across the town. There's a straight mile of course, and also lime was used in the building

03:09of the canal bottom, wasn't it? It was. Limestone was used to make the canal watertight. What they

03:17did was mix limestone with other ingredients. The limestone semi-set, because the limestone

03:25had been put into a device, a kiln, which reduced the stone to a sort of powder. You mix that with

03:34other ingredients and it makes it impermeable. It's called the puddling process.