Long Marton, Eden, Cumbria, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Long Marton	Civil Parish
Eden	District
Cumbria	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

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It is thought that the first extraction of alabaster in the Kirkby Thore area took place around 1790 when surface exposures were worked near Acorn Bank, a house dating back to the 13th century, but no details exist of this working. Commercial quarrying for gypsum probably began in the 1850s in small quarries near Stamphill Farm, but it wasn’t until the 1880s that larger-scale operations began. During the 1930s, demand for gypsum products increased considerably, and the underground workings were expanded by driving further drifts. Exploration by drilling boreholes was also carried out to identify further deposits. This revealed two additional locations where mining was likely to be possible. One of these was the Birkshead Mine, which still operates today. In 1937, a new mine was opened at Stamphill, and as a result of increased mechanisation of the extraction process, continued expansion took place underground. A new quarry was opened at Houtsay near Acorn Bank in 1960, which proved to be very successful. As excavation became deeper, an entrance was created in the eastern quarry face, and a new mine known as Newbiggin Mine opened in 1961. Another new mine was opened at Longriggs in 1965 to the south of the Kirkby Thore plant. Stamphill was virtually worked out by the 1970s, and gypsum production was then concentrated in the remaining mines located at Birkshead, Newbiggin, and Longriggs. However, in the 1990s, the demand for mined gypsum was reduced as a result of a new environmental process to reduce emissions from coal-fired power stations by using limestone slurry filters. A by-product of this process was gypsum, which was converted from the limestone by chemical treatment. In 2005 Newbiggen Mine closed. Desulfogypsum (30% mined gypsum from Birkshead and 70% chemically treated limestone from Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire) was used for commercial purposes until 2022, when it was then replaced by domestically mined (plus imported) gypsum as a result of the decline of U.K. coal-fired power stations.

Both the mining and manufacture of gypsum-based products continue at Kirkby Thore today, although only the Birkshead Mine remains in use now (unfortunately, I can’t find a record or details of when Longriggs Mine closed). All the previous quarry and mine locations have now been cleared and landscaped, so there is little evidence, beyond the production plant and conveyor belts, of the scale of operations that have taken place in this area. Even the above-ground infrastructure at Birkshead has been reduced to the point where it is not obvious what the purpose of the building visible from the local roads is.

The mine at Birkshead has very little surface presence as most of the associated plant and machinery is located hundreds of feet underground. Entrance is via a drift entrance, and the product is moved by conveyor belt to the nearby British Gypsum processing plant at Kirkby Thore.

Commodity List

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Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

2 valid minerals.