Sparvetta Feldspar Mine, Nottingham

Location: south side of West Ridge Road in West Nottingham

This quarry was active into the 20th century. The feldspar ore was heated in a kiln and while hot sprayed with water to shatter it. It was then milled onsite. Feldspar was used in the manufacture of glass, enamel, porcelain and other uses.

At the time of the writer’s visit, in May 1907, the quarry was an open pit 400 or 500 feet long, 50 to 150 feet wide, and 80 feet in maximum depth. The greatest length is in a direction N. 55° W., and this appears to represent the general trend of the feldspar mass. The working taps two feldspar masses of nearly parallel trend, but of different dip, the dip of one being approximately vertical, while that of the other is so inclined that it joins the first near the bottom of the quarry to form a single vein. The southwestern of these two feldspar masses is only 5 to 10 feet wide near the surface, but broadens downward. There is no evidence that the pegmatite dies out for some little distance in either direction along its trend, and presumeably it also continues downward to a considerable depth. The wall rock is serpentine, dark green to nearly black in color. At the contact between the two, within a zone that is for the most part about a foot wide, talc and some fibrous serpentine are commonly developed, the fibers of the serpentine being 1 inch to 1½ inches in length. neither of these minerals is utilized commercially.

The quarrying is done by steam drilling and blasting, and the material is hoisted by derricks and transferred to a mill at the side of the quarry. Here it is heated in a continuous feed kiln and when hot is sprayed with cold water. This operation shatters the spar and makes grinding much easier. It is then crushed in three chaser mills of the usual type and ground in tube mills. Two of the latter are of the small type found in most feldspar mills, grinding 2 to 3 tons at a charge. The other is a large mill having a capacity of 5 to 6 tons, which, as originally installed, was a continuous feed mill, but difficulty in regulating the quality of the product led to its alteration to the intermittent type. The capacity of the mill is stated to be about 55 tons in twelve hours.

Bastin E.S., 1910, Economic geology of the feldspar deposits of the United States: U.S. Geol. Survey Bulletin, 420, 85 pages.

Newspaper Clippings

Daily Local News
25th April 1911

The machinery from the Sparvetta mines, near Sylmar, is being hauled to the railroad and will be shipped to New York State, the mines in the barrens being exhausted. Wilson G. Boyer, of Oxford, is superintending the removal of the machinery.

Quarry	Buhrstones	Waste Piles
Photographs from Stone & Hughes, Feldspar in Pennsylvania (1931)