Cocking Limeworks

Cocking limeworks stands on land owned by the Cowdray estate and had kilns in use at least as far back as 1861 and ten years later there are three kilns shown on the 1:2500 OS map. In 1921 the works was leased to Frederick Searle and later his brother Eli who went into partnership with Robert Dunning. Dunning and Searle built six new coal-fired flare kilns in 1926 and made further developments including an aerial ropeway, an overhead crane and the conversion of existing draw kilns to flare kilns in order to produce cleaner lime for the sand-lime brick industry at Midhurst. In 1938 the works, now consisting of two batteries of kilns, was expanded further and production of agricultural grade lime began at the behest of the Ministry of Agriculture. The final operator was Dudman Chalk & Lime Ltd who ceased operations in 1999 and the site is now derelict.

The north bank of four flare kilns has been largely demolished whilst the eight draw kilns comprising the south bank are largely intact. Kiln 1 appears to have been erected as late as 1958 whilst kiln 8 was originally used for drying chalk.