Welton Wold Quarry

Overview

The working chalk quarry above Melton on the north bank of the Humber, and the type section of the Welton Chalk Formation, the unit named after it and mapped across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It has been worked for over a century, supplies an adjacent plant with 300,000 tonnes of high-purity chalk a year, and applied in 2023 to go on until 2064.

History

Chalk has been quarried above Melton for over a century, the site supplying the Humber Cement Works from 1922, and by the 1920s a large-scale cement industry had grown up around the village. The working quarry here is known as Welton Wold Quarry; its southern part, no longer worked, is the Melton Bottom Chalk Pit and a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. Geologists know the place better than most quarries: the Geological Survey takes the section here, which it calls Melton Bottoms or Welton Wold Quarry, as the type section of the Welton Chalk Formation, the unit that its early maps had lumped in as the lower part of the 'Chalk with Flints'. The formation is about 53 metres thick here and is mapped throughout Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, with the Plenus Marls and the Black Band at its base. The quarry was owned by Omya, a Swiss-based group, by 2012, and produces chalk whiting for an adjacent plant making fillers, powders and extenders for chemical and industrial use; around 300,000 tonnes a year are taken and more than a hundred people are employed in the quarry, the processing plant and the offices. In January 2023 the company applied to East Riding of Yorkshire Council to work eastward rather than northward, where the chalk is of better quality: the proposed area holds 12.7 million tonnes, of which 11.9 million are the higher-purity Welton Chalk, enough for 42 years at the present rate, which would carry extraction from the permitted end date of 12 December 2036 to 12 December 2064 and restoration to 2066.

Geology

The type section of the Welton Chalk Formation, at about 53 metres thick here: marly, thin-bedded, flintless and locally shell-rich chalk in the basal few metres, passing up into hard, massive-bedded chalk with nodular flints and regular marl seams and capped by thinner beds, with the Plenus Marls and the Black Band members at its base. The Welton Chalk is the higher-purity, harder rock and needs explosives; the overlying Burnham Chalk makes up a small part of the reserve. The chalk formed in the Late Cretaceous, and is a biological limestone built from the shells of foraminifera and the remains of calcareous algae.

Workings

An open chalk quarry working faces above Melton, taking about 300,000 tonnes a year, the harder Welton Chalk brought down with explosives and fed to the processing plant beside the quarry. Permission as granted allows working northwards; the 2023 application proposes working eastwards instead.

Closure

Permission for extraction runs to 12 December 2036, with about 10.3 million tonnes of chalk remaining under it. An application made in January 2023 seeks to extend extraction to 12 December 2064 and restoration to 12 December 2066.

What remains

Working. The largest chalk quarry in the United Kingdom by the trade press's reckoning, employing more than a hundred people directly or indirectly.

Not a remain but a working face. Parts of the site are recognised as a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Redevelopment

None. A restoration end date of 12 December 2066 is proposed in the 2023 application.

Related mines

• Melton Bottom Chalk Pit — The adjoining workings at Melton Bottom, whose disused southern pit is the SSSI; the BGS names the type section 'Melton Bottoms (Welton Wold) Quarry', so the two records describe one complex and the boundary between them is not firmly settled.

Nearby mines

• Melton Bottom Chalk Pit — 0.9 km SE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

An active quarry with blasting and heavy plant; there is no public access to the faces.

Recorded claims

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

• The type section of the Welton Chalk Formation is Melton Bottoms, or Welton Wold, Quarry at SE 970 282 near North Ferriby, where the formation is about 53 metres thick; its reference section is the coastal cliffs at Bempton and Buckton between North Landing and Speeton. ¹
• The Welton Chalk Formation is marly, thin-bedded, flintless and locally shell-rich in its basal few metres, passing up into hard, massive-bedded chalk with nodular flints and regular marl seams and capped by thinner beds; it includes the Plenus Marls and Black Band members at its base and is mapped throughout Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Early Geological Survey maps called it the lower part of the 'Chalk with Flints'. ¹
• The quarry at Melton Bottom was owned by Omya by 2012 and produces chalk whiting; the southern working, Melton Bottom Chalk Pit, is no longer quarried and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its geology, while the working quarry is known as the Welton Wold Quarry. ²
• About 300,000 tonnes of chalk are extracted a year and supplied to an adjacent production facility making fillers, powders and extenders for chemical and industrial use; the site is Omya's largest production facility in the United Kingdom and employs over a hundred people directly or indirectly in the quarry, plant and offices. ³
• Extraction is permitted until 12 December 2036, with some 10.3 million tonnes remaining under that permission and working to the north; in January 2023 Omya UK applied instead to work eastwards, where 12.7 million tonnes lie, 11.9 million of them Welton Chalk and 0.8 million Burnham Chalk, enough for 42 years at 300,000 tonnes a year, extending extraction to 12 December 2064 and restoration to 12 December 2066. ^3,4
• The underlying, higher-quality Welton Chalk is extracted with the help of explosives, its purity and whiteness being essential to the products made from it. ^3,4
• Quarrying has been going on at Melton for over a century, the site having supplied the Humber Cement Works since 1922. ^3,4

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Northern Province Chalk nomenclature - Welton Chalk Formation — British Geological Survey (Earthwise)
2. (secondary) Melton, East Riding of Yorkshire — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) Quarrying set to continue for another 40 years at Omya UK's East Yorkshire chalk quarry — The Yorkshire Post
4. (secondary) Yorkshire Chalk Quarry Applies For Extension Until 2064 — TVVS

Record created: 23 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026