tarboat's photos

Drift entrance and view up incline to coal processing area at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996.

View down bottom section of incline to coal processing area at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996. The electric hauler was in the open-fronted shed at the bottom. The drift is situated beneath the air receiver on the right.

Tippler at the coal processing area, Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996.

Disused tubs at the incline top at Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996. These 12cwt tubs were purchased from Brancepeth Colliery.

Tippler at the coal processing area, Tows Bank Colliery, Northumberland, 1996. This colliery was opened in 1986 and worked the Little Limestone coal which was often in a seam of only 9 inches thickness and which rarely exceeded 12 inches. The pit closed temporarily several times after 1994 and finally closed for good in the late 1990s.

The Berry Hill Brickworks was situated adjacent to Berry Hill Colliery between Fenton and Hanley in North Staffordshire. By the 1870s bricks were being manufactured by the colliery owner William Bowers and production continued into the 1970s in the hands of Berry Hill Brickworks Ltd. This particular example was manufactured at Kingsley near Cheadle (Staffs) at a brickworks absorbed by the Berry Hill company.

Feeding the limekilns of Capital Iron and Steel Group on the outskirts of Beijing. Seen through the heat haze rising from the bank of kilns.

Another view from the Runcorn Hill trip as the sun sets behind the chemical industries and reflected off the waters of the Mersey estuary.

A late February afternoon and the Castner Kellner chemical plant at Runcorn is silhouetted against the Mersey estuary with the Stanlow refinery in the distance. I received a visit from the plant security guys whilst taking this shot. They said that someone had reported that I was taking photos. They didn't push the issue but stayed around for a while watching me. As I was standing in a public place up a hill several hundred metres from the place there wasn't anything they could do anyway.

Extraction in action - Dowlow Quarry near Buxton.

Looking south from the summit of Shutlingsloe towards Wincle and beyond into Staffordshire.

In response to the request for a view from the summit of Shutlingsloe, here is a shot from Boxing Day 2004 looking east over Wildboarclough. The large house is Crag Hall, owned by Lord Derby who visits occasionally for grouse shooting on the moors.

There are ten steam locomotives visible in this view into the opencast mine at Jalainur. In terms of railways this is probably the steamiest place left in the world.

After all the recent sunny weather it was a disappointment to find today to be dull and misty. Undeterred I headed up Shutlingsloe with Eagle1942 and we found the summit to be entirely cloudbound. It was clearer when we headed back after a pint at the Crag and I was able to take this view of the brooding hill from the stile where the lower path heads off for Wildboarclough.

Disused ground fame on the approach to Hindlow Tunnel on the stub of the Buxton-Ashbourne line to Dowlow Quarry.

The sun sets over the Cheshire Plain after a glorious warm February day.

The smoke hangs low below Bosley Cloud as sunset approaches at the end of a fine February day. Bosley reservoir glistens in the failing light. The far hill is Mow Cop.

One of the joys of living in Macclesfield is the view from the town of the hills on the edge of the Peak National Park. This view taken across Macclesfield from near Gawsworth Road emphasises the ridges as the land rises. In the centre is Higher Blakelow Farm with Blakelow behind, then comes Tegg's Nose Country Park with the quarry land covered in heather and bilberry. The highest land in the background is the northern part of Macclesfield Forest with the conifers planted on the catchment for the reservoirs at Trentabank and Ridgegate. Only the forest area falls within the National Park.