Cliffe Hill Mineral Railway

The Cliffe Hill Mineral Railway was a 2 ft narrow gauge industrial railway that connected the Cliffe Hill granite quarry to the nearby London Midland and Scottish Railway between Leicester and Coalville. The line opened in 1896 and operated until 1948.

Granite is reputed to have been quarried from the outcrop near Markfield in Leicestershire since Roman times. However, it was not until the 1860s that quarrying began on a commercial scale. In the late 1870s two Birmingham businessmen opened a quarry at Cliffe Hill to provide street setts and kerb stones. This quarry closed in 1887 but was revived in 1889 by Mr. J. Rupert Fitzmaurice the son of one of the original owners. Fitzmaurice equipped the quarry with then modern machinery and it quickly became a commercial success.

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