Bygone Burnley: The Culvert and lime kilns, with historian Roger Frost MBE 02-12-24
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00:00We're in Burnley Centre, near the culvert, in fact behind the culvert, and we are standing
00:08in front of Burnley's lime kilns of 1799. When the canal was opened it came through
00:19areas of the country that were predominantly limestone, and at Barn Oswick, at Rainhill,
00:27there were huge deposits of limestone which were quarried, brought along the canal to
00:35Burnley, and Burnley was the point where they built these huge kilns. You can only see a
00:42part of them now, but we'll show you a picture of them as they were at the beginning of the
00:4720th century. The lime came to Burnley because Burnley was
00:52expanding. Burnley was slightly later than other towns in developing industrial revolution
00:59activities, but mills were being built, new houses were being built, and they needed lime
01:06for the cement, they needed lime for the plaster, needed lime for the lime wash. Lime was used
01:13for all sorts of building purposes in the past, and it's still an important commodity
01:20for the building industry. At Clitheroe there are huge deposits which are used by builders
01:29and constructors all over the north of England. We're at the culvert in Burnley, standing
01:38on top of the culvert, which was built originally in 1797-8, but was rebuilt after changes that
01:50took place in the 19th century in 1926. We've got pictures of that to show you, but also
01:58we're on the canal bank at the beginning of Burnley's famous embankment. It's the biggest
02:05embankment in the country. It's embanked on both sides, and it was built to keep the
02:13canal at the same level as it crossed the River Calder. In another program we're going
02:20to talk about the embankment in more detail, but it was a significant development for the
02:27town. When it was constructed, together with the culvert where we are now, there were hundreds
02:33of workmen, all using hand implements, no power tools whatsoever. Altogether about 500,000
02:45square yards of soil and stone was used to build the Burnley Embankment. It's now one
02:56of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways, and it has spectacular views on summer days right
03:03across the town. There's a straight mile of course, and also lime was used in the building
03:09of the canal bottom, wasn't it? It was. Limestone was used to make the canal watertight. What they
03:17did was mix limestone with other ingredients. The limestone semi-set, because the limestone
03:25had been put into a device, a kiln, which reduced the stone to a sort of powder. You mix that with
03:34other ingredients and it makes it impermeable. It's called the puddling process.