tarboat's photos

Shunter and wagons on the sidings at the loading point at Corus' Hardendale Quarry, Shap.

The tarboathound is learning quickly and is eager to please. To this end she led me to this brick which was lurking under the bushes in the planted areas around a business park. An excellent find - a product of Joseph Timmis & Sons Limited, Bradwell Wood Tileries, Wolstanton, Tunstall.

Crewe College of Education was begun in 1908 when the Cheshire Local Education Authority decided to build a teacher training college. The original buildings were completed in 1912 in a pleasing brick and terracotta design. Today the campus forms part of the Manchester Metropolitan University in Cheshire. I believe that Cheshire County Council favoured J C Edwards of Ruabon for terracotta and this is the most likely supplier for the Crewe buildings.

Winding drums slowly being absorbed into the trees at a disused stone mine.

Locomotives at the coal crane one evening at the Nordhausen depot of the Harzquerbahn

Auchlochan collieries at Coalburn were part of the Wm Dixon Ltd empire. It appears that the brickworks had either closed or been sold by 1947 as it was not passed to the NCB.

Wm. Baird & Company, later Bairds and Dalmellington Ltd, operated the Annbank Brickworks adjacent to their Ayr 1& 2 (Enterkine 9 & 10) Collieries which supplied fireclay to the works. The NCB operated the works until 1969 and the Scottish Brick Corporation until 1977.

The Balgonie Colliery Company operated the brickworks alongside the colliery in Thornton, Fife. It appears that the brickworks had either closed or been sold by 1947 as it was not passed to the NCB.

Petrochemicals have been produced on the Carrington site since 1949. The main output from this plant is polypropylene and polyethylene . Formerly operated by Shell the Carrington site is part of the LyondellBasell Industries Group of Companies which was formed at the end of 2007 by the combination of Basell Polyolefins and Lyondell Chemicals.

Meeting of three counties at the packhorse bridge over the infant River Dane. Cheshire to the left, Staffordshire to the right, and Derbyshire behind and to the right of the bridge.

The profile of the mighty Shutlingsloe varies greatly as you circumnavigate its loft heights. This view is taken from the moorland between the Congleton to Buxton Road and the road down to the bridge in Wildboarclough.

There is still plenty of snow about as an early afternoon train approaches the summit of the Brocken. The train is just about to pass over a snow covered level crossing used mainly by skiers.

Another from the abandoned gritstone quarry visit. This is the cylinder, flywheel and crank of the steam engine that drove some of the machinery. The plate on the side of the cylinder reads - Mather & Platt Manchester 1873 . The stone slab water tank is a rare survival too.

This week Niamh was introduced to the pleasures of boating. Apart from falling in before we set off she soon got the hang of patrolling the deck and looking out for pirates etc.

Rattcliffe on Soar power station peeps over the trees as another of the Attenborough Quarry barges is loading at the Thrumpton wharf.

Double headed working of standard gauge coal trucks on transporter wagons approaches the Ilfeld viaduct on the Harzquerbahn.

Attenborough sand and gravel pit was established in Nottinghamshire in the 1920s. Since then the pit has expanded up the Trent Valley in Nottinghamshire, and into Derbyshire. The current extraction operated by CEMEX UK Materials (Aggregates) Ltd is undertaken almost 5km from the processing plant and material is moved across the flooded former workings with barges pushed by Bantam tugs. The flooded pits form an extensive nature reserve which is managed by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and Broxtowe Borough Council. Here a load of gravel passes the modern visitor centre at Attenborough about half way on its journey to the processing plant.

Brunner Mond chemical works at Lostock near Northwich.