Hessle Chalk Quarries

Quarries and Whiting Works

Chalk has been quarried at Hessle for centuries. The first chalk to be quarried was alongside the foreshore where access was easier but over the centuries the quarries gradually moved inland towards Hesslewood and beyond Ferriby Road. Hessle chalk was quarried in pre-Domesday times and may have been used to provide foundations for the church. Records exist showing that chalk from Hessle was used to pave the streets and build the walls of Hull. Much of the land along the Foreshore where the quarries were was owned by the Chartehouse, which received it from the de la Pole family in mediaeval times. The land was subsequently leased to a number of people over the years who exploited its natural resources.

Excavations in the 1920s for the development of the Square suggest that Southgate is a very old route (probably the ancient broad military highway mentioned in a Charter of King Aethelred) with chalk foundations. Hessle chalk was used in the building of Anlaby Road in the early fourteenth century and for most of the roads in the area. It was used for the building of the Hull-Hessle turnpike road in 1826, and chalk from the railway cutting at Hessle was used as ballast when laying the tracks to Hull and Brough.

In the twentieth century quarrying took place beyond Boothferry Road at Humberfield, which has now been filled in and re-developed. The quarrying continued until the second half on the twentieth century with the last load of chalkby rail from Hessle went to Earle’s cement works in Wilmington in July 1970.

Within the quarries there