View allAll Photos Tagged Cliffs
Geologically, Crich lies on a small inlier of Carboniferous limestone (an outcrop on the edge of the Peak District surrounded by younger Upper Carboniferous rocks).
Quarrying for limestone probably began at Crich in Roman times. In 1791 Benjamin Outram and Samuel Beresford bought land for a quarry to supply limestone to their new ironworks at Butterley. This became known as Hilt's Quarry, and the stone was transported down a steep wagonway, the Butterley Company Gangroad, to the Cromford Canal at Bullbridge. Near there they also built lime kilns for supplying farmers and for the increasing amount of building work. Apart from a period when it was leased to Albert Banks, the quarry and kilns were operated by the Butterley Company until 1933. The gangroad, which descending some 300 feet in about a mile, was at first worked by gravity with a brakeman ‘spragging’ (i.e. slowing) the wheels of the wagons by means of a pole or bar hinged to the rear axle. The wagons were then returned to the summit by horses. However, in 1812 the incline was the scene of a remarkable experiment when William Brunton, an engineer for the company, produced his Steam Horse locomotive. In 1840 George Stephenson, in building the North Midland Railway, discovered deposits of coal at Clay Cross and formed what later became the Clay Cross Company. He realised that burning lime would provide a use for the coal slack that would otherwise go to waste. He leased Cliff Quarry (the name by which the site at Crich was known at the time) and built limekilns at Bullbridge. They were connected by another wagonway including a section known as ‘The Steep’, a 550 yards (500 m) self-acting incline at a slope of 1 in 5.
Cliff Quarry closed in 1957/8 and the eastern end was bought in 1959 by the Tramway Museum. Another part of the quarry reopened in the 1960s operated by RMC and Tarmac for the building of motorways across the country. In 2000 ownership of the active quarry site (Crich Quarry) had been transferred to Bardon Aggregates. However, due to a downturn in sales and after finding the limestone was seemingly contaminated with a substance that turned it a strange colour they closed the quarry in 2010 and it never reopened.
In 1964 (and for 38 years) Rolls-Royce used a separate part of the quarry for dumping low-level radioactive waste such as enriched uranium, cobalt-60 and carbon-14. Following a campaign and blockades by villagers in the Crich and District Environment Action Group, dumping eventually ceased in 2002. In 2004 the Government backed an Environment Agency document that banned further dumping and required Rolls-Royce to ultimately restore and landscape the site.
In 2011 plans were proposed to redevelop the 44-acre site at Crich Quarry into the Amber Rock Resort (a massive water park complex and hotel). At the present time (2020) the site remains derelict. Whilst the machinery has been heavily vandalised the buildings and structures themselves are still there, although much of the old quarry site (opposite the Tramway Museum) is inaccessible due to flooding.
Many years ago Cliff worked on the Apache Software Foundation. On a business trip while contemplating the impact of Martin Luther King Cliff decided to change direction and focus in his life.
Cliff formed a non-profit (www.literacybridge.org/) and decided to tackle poverty in Northern Ghana were millions live well below the poverty line on less than a $1 a day. Cliff created a Talking Book (when your poor you are often illiterate) that allowed him to reach villagers with messages designed to improve lives with farming techniques and save lives with basic health procedures.
Years later he has partnered with UNICEF and is impacting 1000s of lives. Farmers increase yields and win national Ghana farmer recognition awards and families spend 6 hours a week listening to messages on the Talking Book.
You should consider donating to his great cause.
These magnificently exposed layers of rock reveal the world’s most complete fossil record of life in the “Coal Age” when lush forests covered Joggins and much of the world's tropics, 300 million years ago.
The swamp forests produced massive quantities of organic matter that, over millions of years, created the coal deposits for which this period of history is named.
Embedded in 15 kilometres of accessible coastal cliffs, rare fossils reveal details of life in the “Coal Age”.
Pulau Langkawi is filled with interesting limestone caves housing many bat populations. I asked a local skipper to spend a morning showing me around the bat caves on the small islets and inner coves of a complex mangrove swamp. This particular cave at the end of a secluded beach had a tiny spider bat population--funny thing is, they really did look like giant spiders! Not surprisingly, the photo that I shot of the bats inside the cave didn't come out well.
Langkawi, Malaysia, 2004
True to the name, Echo Cliffs really do make pretty good echoes. Which meant a lot of hooting and yelling by the kids.
Cliff Henderson Collection image. Clifford "Cliff" Henderson (1896-1984) was one of the early organizers of the National Air Races, and managed the races from 1928 through 1939. Please tag these images so that we can keep the information with the digital files. This photo is for educational purposes only. This image has been graciously donated by Willis and Claudia Allen of Allen Airways Flying Museum.
Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum
The coast,the Indian Ocean meets the Great Southern Ocean,large cliffs and pounding seas.Scan from slide 1998.