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Allotments Quarry

Quarrymans Court, Rock Lane, Combe Down, Bath.

The underground workings here had access by a single vertical shaft. The quarry worked a small area that had been left unexploited, surrounded by existing workings of the Firs Quarry. Due to its location, it is probable that Alottment's Quarry connected into the considerably larger Firs Quarry / Byfield Mine.

Alternative Names: Allotment Shaft, James Riddle's Quarry, Byfield Mine Vertical Shaft

Notes: Little is known of this quarry and the grid reference is approximate, it locates the shaft as below the houses at the western end of Quarrymans Court, which were built in 1998. It has been described a single shaft quarry lifting stone by a petrol winch at the western side of Sheephouse Quarry. It was worked by James Riddle in about 1905 and appears to have concluded by 1914. It is an important site historically as it is thought to have been the only quarry on Combe Down to have used an underground railway together with cranes and has the distinction of being the last underground stone quarry worked in the traditonal core quarrying area at Combe Down.

This shaft is now probably now lost. Interestingly, it is not shown on OS maps for the early twentieth century.