Читать книгу The Ceredigion and Snowdonia Coast Paths. The Wales Coast Path from Porthmadog to St Dogmaels онлайн

20 страница из 37

The limestone industry

Limestone was a significant import in the 19th century. It was burnt in kilns to produce quicklime for use in building mortar, and for ‘sweetening’ the agricultural land; all along the coast – again, especially south of the Dyfi – there are limekilns, sometimes in quite out-of-the-way places.

A well-preserved limekiln at Cwmtydu (Day 13)

At the kilns the limestone was crushed, usually by hand, to a uniform size and built up into a dome, with alternate layers of coal inside the furnace on a grate above the ‘eye’ of the kiln (the air intake). The kilns were all roughly the same size, as this accommodated the optimum size of fire: any bigger and the coal and limestone would collapse under their own weight. Lime-burning was not only thirsty work but also unhealthy because of the smoke and fumes.

The coming of the railways meant that lime could be transported around the country more easily by larger manufacturers, so the small-scale individual limekilns became unprofitable and fell out of use.