Canterbury is at the intersection of two geological areas, the sticky London Clay beds to the north of the city and in the south the chalk of the North Downs. Cooper’s Pit is an abandoned chalk quarry which has been designated a regionally important geological site (RIGS).¹ Formerly known as Dane John Lime Works, it is located at the top of Lime Kiln Road in Wincheap.

The geology of the site is described in detail in the memoirs of the Geological Survey published by Smart, Bisson and Worssam. The pit is described as “the finest inland section in M. [micraster] coranguinum chalk in the district’.² The authors outline the soil and rock types which include soft white chalk, flint nodules and ‘abundant Conulus’.³ Conulus were sea urchins that lived in the Cretaceous era, revealing that the land would have been submerged at this period. It was not until the end of the Chalk times (65 million years ago) that sea level fell.

A layer of tabular flint known as Whitaker’s Three-inch Band is a feature of the site’s geology, and these flints can also be found north of Merton Farm and on Hollow Lane about 450 yards NW of Stuppington Farm. There is some “local silicification of the chalk at the contact with benched drift deposits exposed in this cutting’.⁴ Silicification occurs when rocks or organic matter come into contact with silica-rich surface water. Silicates (or flints) are tough rocks that were used by Stone Age people to make axe heads and light fires. These rocks are buried under sediments where groundwater can flow through them. Over the years, the road has cut down through the chalk to a depth of more than 10 feet in places.⁵ Flint near the base of Cooper’s pit is ‘associated with brown loams and clays infilling fissures and cavities and deposited from percolating waters’⁶. The Bullhead Bed is overlain by glauconitic sand, loamy sands, patches of clay and sandy clay.⁷

The site was quarried for lime during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lime was used as a mortar, wash or plaster in stone structures such as churches and bridges, but also for agricultural purposes and street paving. In 1862, George Ashbee advertised in the Kentish Gazette that ‘lime may be had in any quantity at the Dane John Lime Kiln’.⁸ Just over a decade later, it was being worked by Charles Chapman who offered ‘the best burnt lime’ to builders, farmers, etc.⁹ The ordnance survey map of 1870 shows the chalk pit in the fields reached by a track and far from the present-day housing. By 1889 the Elham Valley railway ran through the site with three lime kilns marked on the map and a tunnel allowing access to a fourth. Haselfoot records that ‘an extensive system of 2ft (61cm)- gauge mineral lines were used to transport chalk from the quarry faces to the kilns’.¹⁰ This 1875 map shows the path to the Lime Kiln from the end of Gordon Road.

After Charles Chapman’s death in 1900, his son continued the business until 1902 advertising ‘chalk and flints for sale’ and ‘lime for building and agricultural purposes by ton, yard or load’.¹¹ In 1902, the lime pit along with its four kilns, some accommodation and arable land was put up for auction.¹² It failed to attract a buyer and it was not until February 1904 that Frank Cooper announced to ‘builders, farmers, market gardeners, agriculturalists and others’ that ‘having purchased the above business, I beg to solicit the continuance of the kind patronage, which has for many years been extended to the previous owners’.¹³ Cooper was clearly successful and by 1930 sought to erect a cement works at the Dane John Lime Works. Despite opposition from councillors and residents the Minister of Health approved the scheme.¹⁴

Wartime brought its challenges as skilled quarrymen went to fight. One of Cooper’s employees, John Tucker was killed on active service.¹⁵ On the home front, preparations were made for a possible invasion and a building on or near the Lime Works was adopted as a ‘fortified house’ to defend Canterbury’s southern edge.¹⁶ A road block was also set up across the north-east end of Lime Kiln Road, near where it meets Gordon Road.¹⁷

In January 1940, the site was used as part of a dummy exercise by A.R.P. wardens who received an alert that there had been a drop of high explosive bombs. The practice was watched by Canterbury’s first female Mayor, Catherine Williamson along with other councillors and officials.¹⁸ In June 1943, one of Cooper’s employees, Branwell Ibberton, lit a kiln before dawn and was fined for burning lime during the blackout.¹⁹ The site continued as a lime and whiting works after the war, later being known as Denne’s Limeworks Pit.

Quarrying ceased in 1975 and part of the site was used as a builder’s merchant and for dumping rubble.²⁰ Plans to establish a civil engineering depot on the site in 1986 were turned down by the council as Lime Kiln Road was deemed unsuitable for heavy lorries due to its ‘restricted width and lack of pedestrian facilities’.²¹ Instead, the council began to investigate the possibility of using the site for recreation or nature study. By 2005, the north side of the pit had been built on, with the part south of the now disused railway line, a wilderness. Remains of its industrial past are now covered in graffiti or have become engulfed by the landscape as blackberry and hawthorn bushes occupy the space where Cooper and his workers once stood.

The Canterbury Landscape Character Assessment and Biodiversity Appraisal 2020 has acknowledged Cooper’s Pit as a regionally significant geological site along with six other pits in the Canterbury district.²² It is the pit closest to the city centre and as such is the most vulnerable to becoming engulfed in housing development with the integrity of the chalk cliffs impacted by surface water runoff. Runoff directed towards permeable Thanet Sand and chalk can lead to collapse of Thanet Sand and occasionally higher strata, leading to sinkholes.²³ Thanet Sands (or Beds) include five sub-divisions, one of which is alternating beds of greenish brown sand and sandy clay about 10 ft thick. This subdivision has only been seen in the railway cuttings south of Canterbury.²⁴ After the collapse of the quarry at Swanscombe in North Kent, it is vital that sites of industrial heritage and geological importance are preserved.

Note: Cooper’s Pit is on private land and leads to an open bull field. This article was published: 17 January 2025.

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