Moor Park Quarry, Neston.

 

When I came to Neston in the early 1970s,  Moor Park Quarry inhabited the area now occupied by Moor Park, The Stoneworks and Sheppards. The quarry itself is probably still there, under the field between the two housing estates, and there are a few photos of it in ‘Secret Underground Corsham’ p57-58 by Nick McCamley. There is a ventilation shaft beside the final corner of the road into The Stoneworks. There was a two-story office block straddling what is now the entrance to Moor Park, owned by the Bath and Portland Stone Company. Behind it was a stone-cutting yard, a deep and dangerous pond (roughly where the field now is), and a large spoil heap which extended all the way to Greenhill, where the Sheppards housing estate has subsequently been built. The quarry was already disused in the 1970s, I think. Later, the land where The Stoneworks is sited was turned into what we called ‘the Fireworks Factory’. I think the factory made emergency flares (as used aboard ships in distress), and I believe it was owned by Leafield Engineering Ltd (on Leafield Industrial Estate), later renamed Honeywell Aerospace & Defence Ltd. The old spoil heap provided a useful barrier around the factory to protect Neston if there were ever an accidental explosion on the site. This remains in place to this day. The entrance drive to the factory was where the footpath to Westwells Road now lies.

When the factory eventually closed it remained unoccupied for years, and from time to time travellers would come and park their caravans on the drive, eventually leaving the area in a considerable mess. 

 

The driveway to the 'Fireworks Factory'

 

Fireworks Factory being demolished

Sheppards

The spoil heap extended to Greenhill, and that end of it was a wilderness area full of buddleia and bramble bushes where our children loved to play.  When the bungalows were built there, the road was named Sheppards after Ernie and Ena Sheppard who had lived in the house further up Greenhill next to the spoil heap. Ernie had been a stonemason before retirement.

 

Moor Park and The Stoneworks

After the quarry works and the office block were demolished, diggers and levellers spent many months preparing the area for housing. There was even a proposal to shift Neston School to a new site on Moor Park (where the field is), and my wife who was a school governor used to pore over the plans for the school with fellow governors. The old fireworks factory site was cleared and The Stoneworks housing estate built in its place. To our surprise, the entrance road was connected to Moor Park and the original entrance road turned into a footpath.