Photograph three steam locos and working excavators in a stunning quarry setting at Threlkeld in Cumbria, Friday 27th May 2016

About this event

Ever wish you could step back in time to photograph the industry of sixty, seventy and eighty years ago? Now you can, as we present a full day of photography recreating the once common but now extinct days of steam working in Britain's quarries. Three steam locos, crews appropriately dressed and historic excavators combine to help us recreate authentic scenes in a truly stunning setting.

In conjunction with, and with considerable thanks to, David Tillotson, we are pleased to offer a charter at Threlkeld Quarry, which is located around five miles outside Keswick in the Lake District. In addition to its narrow gauge railway, Threlkeld is home to a unique collection of machinery so typical of the British quarrying industry in the Twentieth Century. We will use the most appropriate available of these excavators to make our recreations as complete as we can.

Whilst the locos and wagons as our focal point, but there is far more to recreating an authentic scene than that. We will try to ensure that our crews are appropriately dressed for the period we wish to recreate, and will include some of the substantial collection of heritage equipment that is based on site, courtesy of the Vintage Excavator Trust. Add to this the backdrop of a granite quarry with its origins 140 years ago, set amidst the splendour of the Lake District, we believe you will come away with a series of great images to remember.

Many quarries and construction companies used locomotives of a particular design or from one particular builder or supplier. These locos would have been largely work-worn, used day in, day out to do a regular job. By ensuring our locos are in workaday condition, and all Bagnalls, we believe this offers a splendid opportunity of recreating authentic scenes that could have been seen country-wide in industry during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Our steam locos, all built by W G Bagnall of Stafford, are Isabel (visiting from the Amerton Railway) and Woto (courtesy of Alan Keef) ably supported by resident locomotive Sir Tom. Isabel is very much at home in a quarry environment, having been delivered new to the Cliffe Hill Granite Company of Markfield, Leicestershire in 1897, where the loco worked until around 1946. She was restored by apprentices at her builders, Bagnall, as a display locomotive in 1953 and plinthed, as a result of which Isabel survived for preservation. Woto was built in 1924 and worked for British Insulated Callenders Cables Limited. Sir Tom dates from a year later, built in 1925, and was fully restored by her owner Ian Hartland, returning to steam in 2010. Between them, they have some 300 years of history!

Threlkeld Quarry was opened during in the 1870s to supply ballast for the Penrith to Keswick railway line. Activities expanded to such an extent that by the 1890s some eighty thousand tons of stone a year were being quarried. Stone was supplied to many other major projects including the Crewe to Carlisle railway line and the Thirlmere Reservoir project built by Manchester Corporation Waterworks. The quarry was in continuous use up until 1937 when it closed, but after a gap of twelve years it reopened in 1949. Production then continued until 1982 when much of the equipment was sold. It was a further ten years before the Lakeland Mines & Quarries Trust were granted a lease on the quarry. The Trust's trading arm succeeded it in managing and running the site in 1995, and is now in charge of the Museum and the extensive site.

Don't miss this distinctly different, nostalgic and, above all, photographically inspiring event. There are few more authentic locations than Threlkeld for accurately recreating these scenes and you should come away with a fine selection of images representing an important part of our industrial heritage that would otherwise be only a memory.

Event cost £45.00 per person.

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