Brown End Quarry

Overview

Brown End Quarry is a former limestone quarry of one hectare near Waterhouses in Staffordshire, worked from the middle of the eighteenth century until the 1960s. Further development was restricted after the Peak District National Park was created in 1951, and quarrying ended within the decade. The Staffordshire Wildlife Trust acquired the site in 1987 as its first geological nature reserve. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a regionally important geological site, notified because the Milldale limestone exposed in its faces is seen in few other places in the Peak District.

History

There was quarrying at Brown End from the middle of the eighteenth century. Its working life was ended not by exhaustion but by designation: when the Peak District National Park was formed in 1951 — the first national park in Britain — further development of the quarry was restricted, and quarrying ended in the 1960s. In 1987 the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust acquired the site, its first reserve taken specifically for its geology rather than its wildlife, and laid out an interpretive trail around the workings. The stone was burnt on the spot: a two-pot limekiln stands beside what is now the car park, and limekilns are marked here on maps from 1844, with a second smaller quarry and an old explosives store on the reserve. The Geological Survey rates the quarry one of the two best sections of the Milldale Limestones, 86.85 m of Chadian-age beds exposed up to their junction with the Hopedale Limestones, and Trust volunteers have cleared much of the face again since the 2010s.

Geology

The rocks exposed here were laid down about 350 million years ago in the Carboniferous, when this was a warm tropical sea and the remains of sea creatures accumulated in the North Staffordshire Basin, where the water was deeper and moved slowly. About 290 million years ago the area was uplifted above sea level. The Milldale limestone found in the quarry is not seen in many other places in the Peak District, which is the reason for the SSSI notification: its deposits formed in fairly still water about 300 metres deep and are more finely grained than limestone laid down in shallower, faster-moving water. The survey memoir gives the section as 86.85 m of Milldale Limestones, entirely Chadian, with a conodont fauna recorded by Morris in 1970, passing up into the Hopedale Limestones; a block of knoll-reef limestone lies upside down on the face where it slid down the sea-floor slope, and the red staining is Triassic.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

A small open limestone quarry of about a hectare. Nothing is recorded of its plant or working methods; what the site is now valued for is the section its faces expose rather than the stone it produced. An interpretive trail runs around the quarry and it is registered as an EarthCache.

Closure

Development was restricted from 1951 with the creation of the Peak District National Park, and quarrying ended in the 1960s.

What remains

A nature reserve of the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, acquired in 1987 as its first geological reserve, designated both a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a regionally important geological site. Cowslip, knapweed, oxeye daisy and fragrant orchid grow on the former quarry floor and spoil heaps, drawing butterflies and other insects.

The quarry faces and the spoil heaps survive, the heaps now flowering ground. The faces are the point of the designation, exposing the Milldale limestone section. A two-pot limekiln survives by the car park, its arched top still visible, with a smaller quarry and an old explosives store beyond.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• There was quarrying at Brown End from the mid 18th century. In 1951, when the Peak District National Park was formed, further development of the quarry was restricted, and quarrying ended in the 1960s. ¹
• The site was acquired by the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust in 1987, its first geological nature reserve. ^1,2
• The Milldale limestone found at this quarry is not seen in many other places in the Peak District, which is the reason for the Site of Special Scientific Interest designation; its deposits accumulated in fairly still water about 300 metres deep and are more finely grained than limestone deposited in shallower, faster moving water. ¹
• The rocks exposed by the quarry were laid down about 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous, when the area was a warm tropical sea and dead sea creatures were deposited in the North Staffordshire Basin; about 290 million years ago the area was uplifted above sea level. ¹
• Beside the car park stand the remains of a two-pot limekiln in which the quarry's limestone was roasted to quicklime; limekilns are recorded here on maps back to 1844, and the arched top of one pot is still visible though the ground was raised for the car park. The reserve has a second, smaller quarry by an old explosives store, a lookout above the thinly bedded Milldale Limestones with the thicker Hopedale Limestones behind, a block of knoll-reef limestone lying upside down where it tumbled down the sea-floor slope, Zoophycos trace fossils, and red staining washed down from the Triassic sandstones that once overlay the rock; Trust and GeoConservation Staffordshire volunteers have re-exposed much of the rock face. ³
• The Geological Survey's Ashbourne and Cheadle memoir records Brownend Quarry, Waterhouses (SK 0910 5019), as one of the two best sections of the Milldale Limestones, entirely of Chadian age, showing 86.85 m of the formation and its junction with the overlying Hopedale Limestones; Morris (1970) recorded a conodont fauna there including Scaliognathus anchoralis and Hindeodella segaformis, confirmed by the survey between 31 and 44 m above the base of the section. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Brown End Quarry — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Brown End Quarry nature reserve — Staffordshire Wildlife Trust
3. (secondary) Reserve walk: Brown End Quarry (Staffordshire Wildlife, spring 2015) — Staffordshire Wildlife Trust
4. (primary) Geology of the country around Ashbourne and Cheadle: memoir for sheet 124 (British Geological Survey) — British Geological Survey

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026