Adamant

Location:

• Grid reference: TA1010031015
• x=510100
• y=431015
• 53°45'50"N; 0°19'47"W
• Civil Parish:Sutton on Hull, East Yorkshire

Clinker manufacture operational: 1878-1897

Approximate total clinker production: 210,000 tonnes

Raw materials:

• Initially Thames chalk ballast: from 1888 Middle Chalk (Welton Chalk Formation: 90-94 Ma) from Barton
• Alluvial Clay from Barton

Ownership:

• 1878-1885 Martin Brown and Co.
• 1885-1890 Skelsey and Co.
• 1890-1897 Skelsey’s Adamant Cement Co. Ltd

Also called Skelsey’s Works, but not to be confused with Skelsey’s Barton plant. The plant started with perhaps two wet process bottle kilns, expanded to ten in 1881-1882. During 1885-1890 these were converted into chamber kilns (300 t/week): development then concentrated at the Barton plant, and the plant shut down as soon as the latter, with on-site raw materials, was up and running in 1897. There was a major fire on 17/4/1897, which may have marked the end of clinker manufacture. Transportation was entirely by water from a wharf on the River Hull. The site was subsequently occupied and built over by the adjacent Reckitt’s ultramarine plant.

Power supply

No information

Rawmills

No information

No rotary kilns were installed.

Sources::

• Primary Sources:
  • Earles Papers, Hull Archive
  • Greenhithe Archive
  • Ordnance Survey 1:500 mapping
  • BGS mapping and monographs
• Confirmatory Sources:
  • Francis, p 225