Manufacturing on site

The oldest, simple flare kilns are in the South Pit area of Amberley Working Museum. A second group, next to the Museum Shop, were built to serve the newly opened White Pit in the 1870s. The lime was shovelled from the drawholes at the foot of the kilns, which gave access to the bottle-shaped "chambers". To their left is a horizontal Grinding Mill, used to grind the larger lumps of lime into powder. It was driven by a steam locomotive standing on rails in the adjacent shed.

Opposite the Blacksmith's Shop is a third group of kilns. The corrugated iron shedding provided cover in rainy weather to prevent the lime from getting wet. At one time a railway siding came right up to these kilns; lime was loaded into wagons to be taken to the Hydrator Plants - one where the Timberyard now lies, and another above the pond next to the Concrete Exhibition.

The largest block of kilns is in the quarry bottom beyond the Timberyard and, despite its size, is easily missed. It was erected in about 1905, to the design of a Belgian named De Witt. Its 18 firing chambers operated on a down-draught principle, more usually used in brick kilns, and fired in rotation. The original structure was a little over half the present height of the kilns, and had a pitched, tiled roof.

These kilns were not a success, most likely due to poor circulation of gases through the chambers and flues, and by 1910 a series of conventional inverted bottle-shaped chambers had been built into the structure. Two of the De Witt chambers remain, and one of these can be seen from the north side of the block.

A prominent feature of these kilns is the railway platform on each side of the block, allowing the transfer of lime direct from the kiln chambers into railway wagons. During the many years since the kilns were last used, their condition has seriously deteriorated, and close access by visitors is not possible.

The future of the De Witt kilns, however, has never been better. As the De Witt kilns are listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, funding opportunities have been available to undertake emergency repair work on the kilns. This began in September 2002, and further restoration work is anticipated to restore them to their full glory in the not-too-distant future.