Landfill Check

Birchwood Quarry

IndustrialInert

Birchwood Quarry is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Wirksworth, Derbyshire. It received industrial and inert waste between 1959 and 1987, covering about 0.93 hectares. Reference EAHLD22849, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD22849
Site nameBirchwood Quarry
AddressHomesford, Near Matlock
Site operatorSevern Trent Water Authority
Licence holderSevern Trent Water Authority
Licence issued20 January 1982
Licence surrendered17 December 1987
First waste input31 December 1959
Last waste input30 November 1987
Area0.93 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaLower Trent MI
Grid reference432600, 355100

Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.

Boundary map

What these waste types mean

Industrial:
factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
Inert:
builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.

Other historic landfill sites nearby

What this data does — and doesn't — cover

  • Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
  • Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
  • Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
  • Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.

EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.