During 1885, Mr Issac Sharples who was working the dolomite deposits at Steetley for building purposes went into partnership with Mr John Rowley Horton, a young man with a family background in industrial iron processes who was quick to appreciate the importance of furnace linings in the steel industry, and the Steetley Lime and Building Stone Company was formed.

The company expanded and by 1904 other sources of supply became necessary. Steetley's links with Coxhoe started on the 12th April 1904 with the sale of the Coxhoe Limestone Company to the Steetley Lime Company. The 300 acre property at Coxhoe was purchased for £11,000 with an additional £500 being paid for the moveable items.

Whereas drilling at Thrislington is carried out in small stages according to the strata and stone quality, at Coxhoe it was taken to a depth of eighty to a hundred feet and the whole face was dropped in one blast. Usually a dozen deep well holes were prepared for blasting. When assembled the drills had the appearance of miniature oil well derricks, as can be seen in the Rushbury painting (page 2) and this picture. Up to 50,000 tons of rock could be brought down at a time. The vertical tracks from the drills can be faintly seen in the illustrations. The face was worked by blasting, the stone put into railway wagons and transported by locomotive to the processing plant. Every time the face moved, the railway track had to be moved and extended. Locomotives and wagons were eventually replaced by high capacity dumper trucks.

A very early photograph of the Cupolas and locomotive (kindly supplied by John Smailes)

Prior to 1953 when Steetley's first dolomite burning rotary kiln was commissioned at Coxhoe, dolomite was processed in cupolas (alias 'bottle kilns'), tall cylindrical structures lined with rammed tarred doloma. The first unit was built during 1906 and by 1919 there were 10 of these at the quarry, dead burning the dolomite for use as refractory material, and in 1938 the Coxhoe gas-fired lime kiln commenced production.

By 1930, reorganisation became essential and the Coxhoe operation became part of the Steetley Lime and Basic Company.

By 1937, the first pilot plant for producing magnesia was built at Hartlepool and the British Periclase Company was incorporated in August to erect and operate a full scale commercial magnesia plant. During WW2, Coxhoe supplied both Hartlepool and a rapidly built magnesia plant at Harrington on the west coast of Cumbria. Some of the Coxhoe kilns even became known as the 'Harrington Shore Works'.

Before the Second World War, employees were working long hours with short weekends and accrued no holiday pay - £3 per week was good money. Holidays with pay started only just before 1939.