Mixing It Up

From farming to general haulage to innovative freshly-mixed concrete delivery, RT Mycock is standing tall on rocksolid foundations

- Kieron Fennelly

Like many transport firms, RT Mycock & Sons, which hails from Buxton in the High Peak, was originally farmers. In the Peak District, agriculture and quarrying have long been linked as farmers exploited the limestone resources on their land, and a few like the Mycocks went further, becoming involved in making and supplying concrete.

Using a digger and a rudimentary mixer, in 1972 Ron Mycock started delivering ready mixed concrete for the Scania 164 is strictly for trucks shows and is proof if it were needed that the local council, for which he acquired a second-hand 4x2 tipper. Business gradually increased and by the time Ron’s sons Wayne and Kevin joined, the company had a couple of 8x4 tippers and 6x4 concrete mixers.

Concrete operations soon outgrew the space at the farm and the firm moved several times in the Buxton area, before alighting on its present site at Harpur Hill, south of the town. An unusual hillside plot which had been mined and quarried for over 100 years, it had more recently belonged to the MoD which latterly used it to house munitions.

New digs

Largely derelict when RT Mycock acquired the freehold in 2012, the site was notable for a tall brick building which housed a generator. A classic wartime construction, it had a double skinned ceiling and an exterior blast wall supposedly rendering it invulnerable to aerial attack.