Lime Kilns, Knocknadona Quarry, Moneybroom Road, Lisburn, Co Antrim, BT28

Lime Kilns at Knocknadona Quarry, Moneybroom Road, Lisburn

A freestanding bank of five lime kilns aligned east to west stands in the middle of an extensive disused limestone quarry. Five open circular pots sit along the top for loading quarried limestone and coal, with five corresponding draw holes along the base of the south elevation for recovering burnt lime.

Three distinct phases of construction are evident. The earliest phase comprises three contiguous kilns occupying the eastern half of the block. Their south and east elevations are built of random rubble with a slightly battered profile and brick quoins at both corners (the north elevation is buried within the bank). Three splayed draw holes with segmental brick arches run along the base. The east side is braced with mass concrete buttresses. The second draw hole from the east contains a steel bogey for discharging burnt lime, while the third draw hole has an arch higher than the other two. The east side is shored up with mass concrete buttresses.

The second phase comprises two additional kilns at the west end of the block. These abut but are slightly inset from the original three kilns and are also of random rubble construction, though without brick quoins. The draw hole to the east kiln of this pair has been rebuilt with a steel girder head replacing the original arch, with stonework above repaired in mass concrete. The draw hole at the west end resembles the three original ones. Markings indicate a former lean-to roof over this western draw hole, and remnants of an adjoining now-roofless random rubble building (probably an office or store) survive nearby. Both these phases date from the 1800s, though precise dating is not possible from available evidence.

The third phase, probably dating from the 1920s or 1930s, involved doubling the height of all five pots and constructing a reinforced-concrete loading platform flush with their heightened tops. A reinforced-concrete ramp approximately 2.5 metres wide rises from the north to access the platform at its east end. An accommodation track is bridged by this ramp, with mass-concrete and concrete block abutments retaining the bank. Towards the kilns, the ramp rests on square concrete block piers.

The cylindrical walls of the heightened kiln pots employ cavity wall construction with a firebrick inner lining, air gap and concrete block outer skin. Except for the pot at the east end, the lower halves of the raised pot sections are also enclosed by concrete block walls. The east kiln is surrounded by a brick wall with concrete piers rising from these walls to support the loading platform above. A narrow passage between the first and second kilns at the top of the stone portion provides access to a balcony across the frontage, where a metal safety rail runs along it, though no protective railing surrounds the overhead concrete platform.

The block remains in reasonably sound condition, though heavily overgrown with ivy. A brick chimney stands to its north. The remainder of the site comprises deep quarry pits with exposed limestone faces and basalt overlay, partly flooded and heavily vegetated.