Lime kilns at, Magheramorne Cement Works, Shore Road, Magheramorne, Larne, Co Antrim

Lime kilns at Magheramorne Cement Works

These lime kilns stand on the shore of Larne Lough as a relic of what was once the largest lime works in the British Isles. The structure is a large north-facing stone building comprising a range of kilns constructed in two or more phases during the early 19th century.

The main block was built of regularly coursed squared limestone rubble, containing two segmental arched kiln openings in its front face, followed by a large blocked-up segmental arched opening. This gives way to a run of three semi-circular arched kiln openings set in a battered wall of snecked greystone rubble. The three kilns have rusticated stone voussoirs to their front openings and contain smaller recessed segmental arches in brick. A large return block projects forward at the north-east corner, constructed in snecked basalt coursed with rusticated sandstone quoins and battered faces; it originally contained a semi-circular arched kiln opening, now blocked up due to a later flat-roofed concrete extension. The top surface is grassed over and overgrown with vegetation, and part of the front face is covered with creeper.

The main block of kilns appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and was likely erected in 1804 by Mr Farrell, proprietor of the Magheramorne estate. The block at the north-east corner appears on the 1857 map and may have been added by John Irving, who purchased the property in 1824. Lime burning at this site began in 1794, before the construction of these kilns. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs recorded two ranges comprising four and two kilns respectively, each 30 feet deep and 9 feet in diameter at the top, becoming conical towards the bottom and lined with brick. By 1837 the works were described as the largest in the United Kingdom, and by 1840 comprised ten lime kilns forming a range 318 feet long, parallel to the quays and 70 feet distant from them. The works later became The British Portland Cement Works in the early 20th century.

The kilns stand within the site of the cement works, with later industrial buildings to the north and a disused quarry to the east. The structure is much altered and now in a derelict condition, but remains of archaeological interest as a record of late Georgian industrial enterprise.