Cocking Lime Works
Cocking Lime Works and its associated chalk quarry are abandoned industrial sites in the South Downs of England.
They are in a small chalk pit, now heavily overgrown, at grid reference SU87751715 and occupy a site of approximately 3 ha (7 acres).
[1] The two sites are linked by an embanked roadway, built in 1962 to allow lorries to transport chalk direct from the quarry to the kilns.
[8][9] The 1861 Census includes the entry "James Bennett, a tramp, slept in lime kiln" under Cocking, although there is no indication of the precise location.
In 1906, a lease was granted to Pepper and Sons from Amberley in respect of two lime kilns, "one in good working order".
In 1926, Benjamin Cloke became the owner of the Midhurst Brick & Lime Company, thus also acquiring the works at Cocking.
[11] Blasting took place two or three times per week, often on Sunday mornings[11] and provoked regular complaints from the residents of Cocking village, particularly regarding cracked ceilings and broken windows.
[4] By 1914, a 2 ft gauge tramway had been built between the lower chalk pit and the lime kiln at grid reference SU87751704.
[10] The company marketed a product called "Calco", a mixture of powdered chalk and lime, and also contracted with farmers to spread this material on their fields.
From 1938 on, the amount of chalk processed increased substantially, reaching a peak of 36,000 tons in 1955 with agricultural lime accounting for all the additional output.
Following the dismantling of the crane, the kilns were loaded using a dragline excavator placed on the higher ground to the south and unloaded by a portable conveyor belt pushed into the draw holes.
[3] In the late-1950s, the overhead ropeway was dismantled and chalk was delivered from the quarry by use of either the lane from Hill Barn[7] or the A286 road.
[3] In 1962, a new embanked roadway was built to provide a direct connection between the chalk pit and the lime kilns.
The kiln at the western (left) end is set forward and is a free standing structure identical in height to the main bank of six.
This comprised a sequence of crushing machines and ball mills connected by conveyor belts in a steel-framed, asbestos-clad building.
The crushed chalk was then either discharged onto lorries for transport off the site, or by conveyor belt to the final screening plant.
[16] The final screening plant was in a two-storey building attached to the west of the intermediate chalk crusher to which it is connected by two high-level conveyor belts.
