boundary goes through The Fox, with North Witham parish to the east, to a point just south of the A1 interchange. The A1 was upgraded in early August 1971, through Rutland, to Tickencote (built by Rutland County Council). Before the road was improved, the South Witham crossroads on the A1 lay at the point where the sliproads join today. Nearby to the south was RAF Cottesmore, and the village was the centre of the flight path circuit. Quarrying Quarrying began in the village when the railway was built in the 1890s. The geology of the area is 40 cm of topsoil, 32 metres of brown clay (Oadby Till, from Anglian glaciation), 10 metres of limestone (Lincolnshire Limestone Formation), 4 metres of Lower Estuarine Clay (Grantham Formation), 6 metres of ironstone (Northampton Sand Formation), then 7 metres of Upper Lias Clay (Whitby Mudstone). Ironstone originated from deposits on the Lias and oolites, which stretch from Dorset to Teesside; ironstone occurs mainly on the western edge cliff; Scunthorpe is on the Lower Lias. But in the south of county, ironstone is on the Marlstone Rock bed, on the upper portion of Middle Lias. Ironstone quarrying began in 1944; Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals Ltd owned the site from 1950. The adit (6.7 metre diameter) extended as far south as Hooby Lodge. Production was hoped to be 1 million tons of iron ore a year, but only reached 390,000 tons in 1962, and closed on 27 June 1964. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway railway through the village closed in the same year; the adit was bricked up in 1966. Economy On the road to Wymondham is a limestone quarry owned by Breedon Aggregates, containing around 3.2 million tonnes of limestone. Ennstone Johnston bought the quarry for £1.5 million in April 2004 from GRS. Close by to the north is a former ironstone quarry. Other companies based in the village include Compressed Air Plant, Auriga, Petlife International and Clever Cooks. In the parish on the northbound A1 is the Grantham South Witham Travelodge. One village public house is the Blue Cow in the High Street and the other is The Angel near the village church. Railway There was once a South Witham railway station which is now closed. The line went from Melton, via Bourne, to Spalding. In 1898 a branch line was built from the railway (near to the quarry) to Buckminster to