£30.00
Colin Judge & Chris Down
Publication Date: 2024
Format & Edition: Hardback, First Edition
Pagination: 196 Pages, 234 Illustrations
Condition: New
Genre: Narrow Gauge, Light & Industrial
Status: In Stock
Synopsis
The Oxford Portland Cement Company Limited: Company History, Railway & Locomotives by Colin Judge and Chris Down.
For most of the 20th century barely seven or eight miles separated the dreaming spires of Oxford from the smoking chimneys of cement works, first at Kirtlington and then at Shipton-on-Cherwell. The book does cover in detail the locomotives and rolling stock used at the Shipton works, but it is also an account of the industry itself. Indeed, the Kirtlington works did not even have a rail connection, instead being served by canal. The book explains what portland cement is, how it is made and why the mineral deposits in this area of Oxfordshire were well suited to its manufacture.
The development of the Oxford Portland Cement Company, the move from Kirtlington to Shipton on-Cherwell and the subsequent changes of ownership are chronicled. The book concludes with the demise of the Shipton works in the 1980s after plans to modernise the plant and extend the quarries had come to nothing (in part because British Rail were not interested in taking extra rail traffic).
The book features over 200 illustrations including 169 photographs.
Chapters
What is Portland Cement and its History
Early Beginnings at Kirtlington of the Oxford Portland Cement Company
Formation in 1926/27 of Oxford and Shipton Cement Limited
Oxford and Shipton Cement Limited in Operation
Great Western Railway Connection and Internal Railway
Change of Ownership
Shipton on Cherwell Quarry Machinery and Equipment
Locomotives and Wagons
Demise of the Shipton Cement Works
Appendix