Working steam digger at Threlkeld Quarry.

Ray Hooley organised volunteers to recover it from the flooded sand quarry where it had been left to rot.

Apprentices at Ruston Proctor Lincoln works initially renovated it, then it was unused until transported to the Vintage Excavator Trust at Threlkeld Quarry where it was again extensively renovated. It operates on special steam weekends which are advertised on their website below.

The recovery of this digger is recorded in a wonderful film by Anglia TV (with kind permission). It had literally dug itself into a hole – a deep gravel quarry that eventually flooded and was used as a boating and swimming pond at Arlesley.

When the water level was high the crane was hidden, submerged, but when the water level dropped in a drought then the jib appeared, rising out of the water like the arm of a monster, so the locals said. However Ray Hooley recognised the jib boom as belonging to a rare steam excavator and he was an enthusiast and expert in the excavators that were made at the Ruston Proctor works in Lincoln.

Realising that there was a unique but challenging recovery potential for the “monster in the deep” to be recovered from the pond at Arlesley, Ray charmed an army of volunteers to float, drag and crane it to its first renovation.

Anglia TV made a video that records the recovery of this fine machine in their “bygones” series called “The Digger From The Deep” After its restoration it was stored at Lincoln Museum outside where weather and lack of use degraded it. So Threlkeld based Vintage Excavator Trust restored it to the original working state with Heritage Lottery funding.

It can be seen on working weekends at Threlkeld Quarry, Cumbria with other rope excavators doing the job that they were made for, operated by skilled renovator and operator volunteers.

A great debt of thanks must go from future generations to the people who recovered and renovated and still operate this unique example of one of the most important types of machines that built the industrial world at that time.

Excuse any omissions but thanks to: Ray Hooley for being so audaciously optimistic to dream up this recovery; the amateur divers who were looking for a project and found a mega undertaking; the people who loaned the industrial flotation bags; the use of the first hydraulic crane in the UK that was on its way from France to the new owner and stopped off to help; the use of the one or two huge tracked bulldozers that helped tow it out with the help of the crane lifting it; the apprentices of Ruston works at Lincoln and their supervisors for initial renovation; the temporary home at Lincoln Museum; the volunteers and organisers of the Vintage Excavator Trust at Threlkeld who renovated it and maintain it and operate it; Ian Hartland for hosting the working machine at Threlkeld Quarry, near Keswick, Cumbria.

Click link:

View the Anglia TV program about the recovery of The Digger from The Deep! Video with kind permission of Anglia TV for education use only. Obtained and licenced to Peter Nicholson. (One million view by Feb 2025!)

Other excavators on a working weekend

Taken at Threlkeld Quarry at a Vintage Excavator working weekend in 2019 by Peter Nicholson.

Location: on Google Maps

For further information see Threlkeld Quarry & Mining Museum website