Kiln - lime, Ballywalter, Co. Cork

Co. Cork |

Kilns

Kiln – lime, Ballywalter, Co. Cork

Tucked into a quarry in Ballywalter, north County Cork, the remains of a lime kiln sit in a state of slow, quiet collapse, its earthen fill having slipped forward around the front of the structure as though the kiln were gradually exhaling its own contents back into the ground.

What survives is modest but legible: a front wall of random rubble, the stones laid without dressing or regularity, still holding an arched recess roughly a metre and a third high, two and a half metres wide, and around two and a half metres deep. At the rear, overlapping stones are just visible beneath overgrown vegetation, and on the top of the mound a circular depression marks where the funnel once sat, the opening through which limestone and fuel were loaded from above.

Lime kilns were once a commonplace feature of the Irish agricultural landscape. Limestone was burned at high temperatures to produce quicklime, which was then spread on fields to reduce soil acidity and improve fertility. A kiln built into a quarry face made practical sense: the stone to be burned was immediately at hand, and the hillside provided natural insulation as well as a convenient loading point at the top. The design seen here, with an arched draw hole at the base for raking out the burned lime and a funnel above for charging the kiln, was a standard form across much of rural Ireland from the seventeenth century onward. This particular example, sited within the quarry itself, has the feel of a working installation rather than a decorative or civic structure, built for a specific agricultural need and then left when that need passed.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Kiln – lime, Ballywalter, Co. Cork. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement