Derbyshire Region - March 2025 Meeting Report

Our meetings are held at lunchtime over the winter months, and 33 members gathered at The Robin Hood for the March Meeting.

Following February's talk on Electric Cars by Martin Rowley, this month we stepped back in time with a talk by Frank Emerson entitled 'Mining in the Buxton Area from the 1800's to the Present Day'.

Frank has digitised thousands of original photographs depicting the mining activity around Buxton. Given the period, the quality of the photographs is amazing.

Frank is the Archivist responsible for the historical records of Tarmac Limited and it's predecessors, for the quarries around Buxton. Derbyshire is an important centre for Limestone in the UK and owes much of its commercial success to the introduction of the steam engine and rapid expansion of the rail network. Although still very dependant on the local labour force, the expansion of the rail network into the quarries allowed the (relatively) efficient transportation of limestone to the rest of the UK.

We were treated to some 80 slides depicting views of the quarries, showing how much they expanded as the decades rolled by, together with photographs of the workers and the machinery they used at the time.

Members were taken on a journey through time as the industry developed and mechanised.

The April meeting will revert to the usual evening format and will be held on the revised date of 15th April at ~The Robin Hood.