The area surrounding Delph Hill was quarried out sometime before the mid-19th Century, the quarried area was quite extensive but I am not sure of the depth. An area behind Horrobin Farm has been filled in many years ago but the shape of the old quarry is still apparent on aerial photos. This was actually a separate small quarry named Horrobin Delf, but it merged with Doffcocker Delf a little further south when the two ran out of space in-between.
It seems the “natural” ground nearby consists of a very shallow layer of topsoil, then two to three metres of stony clay with sandstone boulders, beneath this is a “fine grained, green/grey sandstone”, which is I guess what they were quarrying. Boreholes around the former quarry area - now infilled and covered with grass - reveal that there is “made ground” - the infill - in places as deep as 10m down to the sandstone bedrock. We can imagine that up to three metres of topsoil and clay were removed and up to seven metres of sandstone around the area of the quarry face. Deeper than I expected.
Incidentally the “made ground” is previously disturbed ground or in this case infill pushed into the quarry at a later time. The infill seems to be composed of stuff from the general area, clay, ash, brick rubble and sandstone. I think the “ash” might be the dark, glassy, cinder like, loose material that I found in the area of quarry that is not filled in. It is definitely industrial spoil from some process involving heat and I’d bet from the fireclay works that was a short distance to the east.
A little further south and east there is an old quarry face hidden away behind what seems to be former land surface pushed up against the quarry face. Here there are patches of tipped cinder fragments and old glass and ceramics, probably from the later brick and tile works - more on that later. The rock face is about four metres tall or maybe more. Nearby there is a very small hill, too insignificant to be named on a map but people called it Car Hill as its profile does look similar to an old car, perhaps a Daimler.
A short distance to the east of Car Hill there is a small, flattened area of land to the right of the footpath were a couple of courses of brick on a concrete plinth could be seen. This was the site of the small engine house associated with the Doffcocker Delf quarry.
A long time ago, before all the fly-tipping we have today, it was common in certain areas to find parts of cars, particularly bonnets. I have no idea why, they just accumulated in places that aren’t even near a road. “The Delph” was one such place, there were always several old car bonnets around and local kids used to slide down car hill on them. If you turn a car bonnet upside-down the smooth outer surface is pretty good for sliding down grass slopes. Older people told us about it as kids and we tried it too. Some people think it was called Car Hill for that reason.
Further south near a crossing of old tracks where an old Oak tree stood hundreds of years ago. In the 19th Century there was a quarry known as Delph Hole, that was later used as a reservoir so it must have had some depth. This are was known as “the tip” by locals but I’ve never been exactly sure about that. It is not at all like a modern refuse tip or a former landfill site. Shallow bores from recent years the sub-surface composition to be “Made Ground”, that is previously disturbed material so I guess there has been some infill but there is no mention of refuse and apart from later fly-tipping I haven’t seen any myself. It’s not at all like Mount Reebok :)
The “made ground” here seems to go as deep as five metres and is composed of the usual clay, ash and stone along with building rubble such as bricks, cobbles, setts, flagstones and even wood. So plenty of demolition material as well as natural ingredients. So we know in places - judging by the shape of the first two ponds to appear, at the east and west ends of the quarry. The depth of quarrying was as much as five metres. Again, deeper than I expected from viewing the current topography.
The quarries had a couple of engine houses mid-way through the 19th Century but the quarries seem to have been abandoned sometime before the turn of the century. There was also at one time a larger building just above the quarry to the northwest. I don’t know what this was. I also imagine there may have been a wall at some point on the west boundary of the area, just before the footpath. There is a line of rubble along here that may have just been pushed into place when the former quarry was levelled, but, it’s always looked to me as though the rubble was pushed into an existing drystone wall that bounded the area. There are bits of masonary and stone ornaments that “look” nearly in situ but this stone gatepost ornament can’t be in place, a gate couldn’t have ever been just here. There is no remaining structure of the larger engine house located in the floor of the Delf Hole quarry but at various times large amounts of the stone and rubble mentioned above became exposed. At one time, I guess in the 80’s quite a lot of stone flags and such were removed, probably for architectural salvage.
There is quite higher ground on the north side of the quarry than the south, there is a steep slope, almost vertical in places composed of loose material. Maybe there was a quarry face here but earth has been pushed over the edge, it isn’t marked as a rock face on the old maps when the quarry is active. They seem to have been quarrying in a southerly direction here, which is downslope which seems odd - but they seem to have been bounded on the south side by Boot Lane, perhaps they had to work in the only place they could acquire the land.
At some point in time the quarried out area was used to store water, but this is at first rather strange for there is no stream or source of incoming water on old or modern maps and no sign at all on the ground. In fact there are relatively few streams in the area. More on this later…
There are a few local stories based on a real-life tragedy but with a few inaccurate offshoots. The story involves a boy from another area of Bolton who drowned in the reservoir created by filling the old quarry but the tale has been changed either so that the boy was from the Delph Hill area or that the drowning occured in one of the two reservoirs that were on the opposite side of Chorley Old Road. The several reservoirs are shown on the old map above. I imagine the story was used to deter kids from playing in quarries or reservoirs.
Delph Hill is a little area located on the lower southern slopes of Winter Hill, on the outskirts of Bolton on the old toll road from Bolton to Chorley. Once the site of houses, a mine and associated fireclay works, quarries and more.
Doffcocker Colliery seems to have come into existence sometime between the 1850s and 1890s. In 1896 the mine was owned by Samuel Rothwell and managed by James Herbert Rothwell. The colliery worked at least two known shafts, situated behind what was the Sportsman’s Arms pub on Chorley Old Road and worked the Lower Mountain Mine seams.
