Sunday September 11th was a super day at British Gypsum’s Barrow site. There was so much to see and do as the company not only provided free fairground attractions, food and drink but also tours of the surface buildings and the mine. This was to celebrate 30 years of operating from here. Everything was primarily for the enjoyment of the families and friends of the employees, but the invitation was widened to people from nearby villages. I’m so glad they did as I went along and found it fascinating. I also wanted to thank them for giving Barrow Voice such a generous, £1,000 donation which helped to keep us afloat after the 2020 Covid pandemic created a massive drop in our income.

The background to British Gypsum’s Open Day

British Gypsum Barrow first opened in 1992, to house a gypsum mine, and a factory where the gypsum is milled and manufactured into ‘thistle plasters’. You will know the plaster that was manufactured from local gypsum by its distinctive pink colour.
The site currently employs 205 people, some of them mining staff, some engineering and manufacturing staff and of course their administrative support for smooth operations.
Having worked for British Gypsum for nearly 15 years previously, we often discussed with colleagues how much our children and families would have liked to see where we work, but with safety regulations, this was rarely possible. I could not hide my excitement when I heard about this public event with the possibility of mine and factory tours. It seems that I was not alone feeling this way, for the mine tours were booked up before the day, and the factory tours also quickly filled-up with overwhelming interest from the public.
British Gypsum staff started planning the event in the spring. It was the first event of its kind at British Gypsum and the message was always “keep it local … and make it a day where we can all celebrate together as one community”. With this in mind, they were keen, and able, to use local companies and made the whole event (food included) free for everyone. The British Gypsum workforce volunteered their time on their days off in order to support the event. People from The Carpenter’s Arms (a safe place for local homeless people) helped with marshalling roles and British Gypsum raised £970 for their charity.

Sarolta Batki

Gypsum? What do you know about gypsum? If visitors on the tours didn’t know anything about it at the beginning of the day they certainly did as they left! I won’t bore you with too many facts but I do remember that it is a sedimentary deposit built up over millions of years and crucial to the building trade as the basis of plaster. It’s not the same as limestone. Gypsum is softer, being hydrated calcium sulphate, whereas limestone is calcium carbonate and doesn’t mix with water as easily. Got it?

The tour round the plant took us into buildings, such as the large dome and the tall tower, familiar enough to Barrow people from the exterior, yet few knew what was inside. A big surprise! There’s an impressive hill of gypsum rock being fed by a conveyor belt from the mine itself before being raked into a cone. An important part of making gypsum involves heating it to get rid of three quarters of the water. It’s astonishing to think that the steam you see coming from a chimney is from water that fell onto the ground as rain when dinosaurs walked the earth.

The tower is impressive in a different way. Inside is an automated warehouse worthy of Amazon! There are five cranes moving thousands of pallets piled with bags of plaster up and down, day and night. To the untrained eye it looks as though there are enough bags stored here for several years. In truth it’s only a two-to-three-day stock.

Then down the mine it is. Before you go down you don safety clothing and watch a short film to know what to do in case of fire. This is extremely rare and the emphasis on safety at British Gypsum is so high employees are far more likely to have accidents at home than at work. Unlike coal mines, there’s no exciting cage to cram into before you fall at breakneck speed to the seams below. Here you are driven carefully down a long sloping shaft in a sturdy jeep to the bottom. And then you stay in the vehicle to be driven for quite a while through the extensive maze of grey, dusty roads passing worked out sections to places where the cutting machinery can be seen. For Open Day safety they weren’t switched on but even so you could appreciate the power they had to tear out the rock with their carbide tipped teeth.

Tours over, it was time for fairground and food. There was such a variety of attractions for all age-ranges from soft play for toddlers, a mini Ferris wheel, face painting and disco to laser clay shooting and a chance to drive a truck. This was very popular; there was always a queue for the truck. The food was marvellous too including freshly made pizzas, burgers, hog-roast baps, donuts, sweets and even candyfloss. It seemed the day had been well thought through to give everyone a good time. And the weather helped; cloudy but it stayed dry.

Gaynor Barton