THORNTON LIMESTONE WORKS 1934 1: 2,500 OS map. Thornton Limestone Works (P W Spencer’s limestone quarry) is about 600yd north of Thornton station. The dates of its opening and closure are not known; Binns (2008) assumes that it was active until the 1920s or ’30s, so it had possibly closed by the time of this map’s publication. A single-track railway into the quarry leaves the Skipton-Colne line at the southern edge of this map extract. There is a network of sidings close to the main line, north of which it passes over a lane. Beyond this bridge is a short loop then a tunnel under the Skipton-Colne road from which the railway emerges into the quarry. Today the abandoned quarry is flooded. Click here for a larger version.
The quarry siding at Thornton-in-Craven passed over the old road to Skipton - ‘Roman Road’ on the accompanying OS map - on this bridge before passing under the new road (now A56) through a tunnel. The view is eastward in September 2016.
Photo by Alan Young 
This is the bridge on the old Skipton Road near Thornton-in-Craven over which the siding from the Colne Branch to Spencer’s limestone quarry formerly passed. The view is westward in September 2016.
Photo by Alan Young  Thornton-in Craven’s disused limestone quarry was served by a short branch from the Skipton-Colne railway. Photographed in June 1984, this is the south portal of the tunnel by which the branch passed under the A56 to emerge in the quarry.
Photo by Neil Clifton 
A siding about a quarter of a mile in length connected the Colne Branch with the limestone quarry at Thornton-in-Craven. It passed through a short tunnel, and the barricaded southern portal is seen here in August 2016. At the far end it emerged in the quarry.
Photo by Alan Young 
P W Spencer’s limestone quarry at Thornton-in-Craven is seen either in the 1920s or the early 1930s; it is understood to have closed before World War 2. Narrow gauge tracks carried the stone within the quarry but a siding from the Colne Branch entered the southern end of the workings via a tunnel.
Photo from late Donald Binns collection 
Seen in February 2017, looking north, Thornton Quarry is now flooded.
Photo by Alan Young  The remains of a building close to the southern rim of Thornton Quarry, seen in February 2017.
Photo by Alan Young
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