Thornton Dale
Liquid / sludgeIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
Thornton Dale is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Pickering, North Yorkshire. It received liquid/sludge, industrial, household, commercial and inert waste between 1971 and 1980, covering about 1.69 hectares. Reference EAHLD05332, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD05332 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Thornton Dale |
| Address | Pickering, Yorkshire |
| Site operator | Pickering Rural District Council |
| Licence holder | North Yorkshire County Council |
| Licence issued | 10 June 1977 |
| Licence surrendered | 17 September 1982 |
| First waste input | 31 December 1971 |
| Last waste input | 31 December 1980 |
| Area | 1.69 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Dales NE |
| Grid reference | 484400, 481900 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Liquid / sludge:
- liquid wastes and sludges, such as sewage sludge or industrial effluent. Can be mobile in groundwater, so worth understanding.
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Household:
- everyday domestic refuse. Decomposes and can generate landfill gas for a few decades after closure.
- Commercial:
- waste from shops and offices — paper, packaging, food. Similar profile to household waste, usually less of it.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
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.