Desborough Ironstone Quarries

Overview

A district of Northampton Sand ironstone workings around Desborough and neighbouring Rothwell, worked in separate phases by several operators between 1859 and the 1960s. Ore was raised from open-cast pits and moved by tramway, and later by aerial ropeway, to the Midland main line at Desborough, feeding first local ironworks and, in its final phase, the Stewarts and Lloyds steelworks at Corby. Part of the district survives today as Rothwell Gullet nature reserve.

History

The Desborough Iron Ore Company, under John Hickman, began working ironstone pits at Desborough in 1859; the Stanton Ironworks Company took over working the pits from 1873. As these original pits became exhausted, Stanton took new leases across the valley at Rothwell Hill, beginning a longer-lived separate working. In 1905 the Desborough Industrial and Provident Co-operative Society opened its own iron quarries on land it owned — 'after many dubitations and hesitations,' as a contemporary account put it — employing around 120 workers raising some 2,000 tons of ore a week. The Co-op ceased quarrying around 1920 but kept the land, taking rent and royalties from later operators including Cochrane and Co. Ltd; by around 1931 the former Co-op works had been taken over by the British Gas Purifying Materials Company, which processed the ore for gas purification rather than blast-furnace smelting. A separate standard-gauge mineral tramway connected a quarry at Thorpe Underwood to the Midland Railway at Desborough from 1916 to 1930. At Rothwell Hill, the earlier working lay dormant for thirty-three years before reopening in December 1959, worked by then under Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals Ltd and feeding the company's giant Corby steelworks; this final phase used lorry haulage from pitface to a bi-cable aerial ropeway running five miles in a straight line to Great Oakley.

Workings

Worked entirely by open-cast methods rather than shaft mining, as was standard across the Northamptonshire ironstone field. The ore is the Northampton Sand Ironstone, a Middle Jurassic unit deposited in a shallow marine transgression, its iron derived from weathering of iron-rich rock inland and precipitated in carbonate muds or around sand grains and shell fragments as ooids; the commercially worked Main Oolitic Ironstone division was typically 2-3 metres thick, with an iron content of 30-35%, composed of quartz sand, carbonate and clay minerals, and worked down to the underlying Lower Siderite Mudstone, firm enough to bear heavy quarrying machinery. Two differently-gauged railway systems served the Co-op/British Gas Purifying works: a 2ft-gauge tramway from quarry to processing works, worked latterly by Hunslet diesel locomotives and running only once a week by 1964; and a standard-gauge line of about half a mile linking the works to the Midland main line, worked by a single Hibberd 'Planet' diesel carrying a maximum of two wagons. The earlier phase at Rothwell Hill was served by a narrow-gauge tramway to Desborough via two cable-operated inclines; its later, 1959-onward phase instead used a bi-cable aerial ropeway of 124 ore hods, each carrying seventeen hundredweight, arriving roughly every 26 seconds after a 53-minute transit from Rothwell Hill to Great Oakley.

What remains

Rothwell Gullet, a former ironstone quarry adjoining the district, is now a 1.6-hectare nature reserve managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire; natural succession has produced dense woodland in the old quarry gullet, notable for hart's-tongue fern, alongside grassland managed by winter grazing.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

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

• The Desborough Iron Ore Company, under John Hickman, began working ironstone pits at Desborough in 1859; the Stanton Ironworks Company took over working the pits from 1873. ¹
• The Desborough Industrial and Provident Co-operative Society opened its own iron quarries in 1905, employing around 120 workers raising some 2,000 tons of ore a week. ²
• A standard-gauge mineral tramway connected a quarry at Thorpe Underwood to the Midland Railway at Desborough from 1916 to 1930. ³
• The Rothwell Hill working reopened in December 1959 after lying dormant for thirty-three years, by then feeding Stewarts and Lloyds' Corby steelworks via lorry haulage to a bi-cable aerial ropeway running five miles to Great Oakley. ⁴
• The Northampton Sand Ironstone's commercially worked Main Oolitic Ironstone division was typically 2-3 metres thick, with an iron content of 30-35%, worked down to the firm Lower Siderite Mudstone floor. ⁵
• Rothwell Gullet, a former ironstone quarry, is now a nature reserve managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. ⁶

Sources

1. (primary) Late 19th-century ironstone quarry pits, Desborough (MNN36194) — Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record
2. (secondary) Ironstone Tramways of the Midlands — (5) Desborough Co-op Pits — Industrial Railway Society
3. (primary) Mineral railway serving Desborough quarries (MNN132229) — Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record
4. (secondary) Ironstone Tramways of the Midlands — (2) Expansion at Corby — Industrial Railway Society
5. (secondary) Geology — Nene Valley Mines Study Group
6. (secondary) Rothwell Gullet — Wikipedia

Record created: 26 August 2026 · Last researched: 26 August 2026