Local resident, Maureen Roberts, our guide for the visit, greeted 15 members of the ‘Friends’ on an overcast, wet (sometimes very wet!) afternoon. Maureen began by giving us a brief history of the site, a former shale extraction facility.

This quarry was opened by the Procter family in 1890 to provide shale for their Brick Works and was a satellite of the Burnley Brick and Lime Works at Heasandford, also owned by the Procters.  The shale was blasted from the rock face and transported by “ginny” trucks, which ran under Waidshouse Road on a narrow gauge railway, to the brick-making area which was just off Railway Street.

The quarry was bought by Lancashire County Council in 1970 and was filled with household waste until 1982. The rock face is all that remains. In 1989 the landfill was covered with soil and a system for collecting and burning off the methane produced by the waste was installed – one of the earliest such installations. Finally, 6000 trees and bushes were planted.

Maureen then led the group round the site, which was much larger than we had realised. We walked through the open area and up to the top of the site with its extensive views over Nelson, before entering a more wooded area. We then turned into an ancient lane leading up to Scholefield, a hamlet surrounding Scholefield House that dates back to 1617.

Retracing our steps back down the lane and admiring the view across to Catlow and Boulsworth Hill, we followed the new path down the steps and back to the car park on Waidshouse Road.