Lime kiln

Lime Kiln, Cunswick Scar, nr Kendal

There are many lime kilns scattered about in the limestone areas of Cumbria. This one sits below Cunswick Scar, which here is clothed with woodland. Most of the kilns date from the 18th and 19th century. Limestone was burned with fuel (probably charcoal here) to produce lime. Kilns like this one were usually built into hill slopes, to allow easy access to load the kiln from the top. The lime when ready was shovelled out from the base through the arched entrance. The lime was mostly used to spread on pasture to sweeten acidic soils. Nowadays, it is mainly fertiliser and slurry from livestock overwintered indoors that is spread on the land, and you can see that Farmer McSpreader has been active in the field beyond. Meadows and pastures dressed with lime would have had a rich flora, alas modern agriculture with its use of slurry and artificial fertilisers has destroyed almost all of the old species-rich fields.

More info on lime kilns can be found here.

It was a bit of a grey day today. I got out for my walk at lunchtime, finding this lime kiln at Cunswick which I hadn't previously noticed. I have done the first draft of my 1000 word Selection (=Survival) statement. I'll cool off on it for a couple of days, and finish it in good time for the deadline in a week's time. In the meantime, I'm helping several of my younger colleagues to get theirs into the right form. Our senior managers were spared any culling and today we learned who will be doing what: jobs for the boys, it could not have been more transparent.