A Brief History of Griffin's Blue Lias Lime and Cement Works

This small family business was set up by William Griffin in 1841 and existed until 1910. It had a quarry and works close to Stockton Locks on the Warwick and Napton Canal, west of the road between Southam and Rugby, and also quarried to the east of the road, from where stone was brought by tramway through a tunnel under the highway and so down to the works.

The canal was the lifeline for bringing in coal for lime burning and for sending out limestone, quicklime and cement, to as far away as London. Following the arrival of the London and North-Western Railway (L.N.W.R.) in 1895, Griffin's Works had its own siding built. The image below is from a map held at the Waterways Museum in Gloucester.

The Brief History is an ongoing project using family, company and public archives. Thanks to a surviving ledger, most customers from the early 1850s have been identified. The Brief History is indexed and a 7 Mb bookmarked pdf version is available here.

 

 The Appendix of images and transcripts (11 Mb) includes images from the above ledger of a few pages of special interest. A bookmark links this file with the one above. Download the Appendix here.

      

The most important cement works in Stockton was Nelson's and this is referred to in the History of Griffin’s Works. Follow the entries on the Links page to read more about the Nelson family and their businesses at home and abroad.