For most of the 20^th century barely seven or eight miles separated the dreaming spires of Oxford from the smoking chimneys of cement works, first at Kirtlington and then at Shipton-on-Cherwell. The book does cover in detail the locomotives and rolling stock used at the Shipton works, but it is also an account of the industry itself. Indeed, the Kirtlington works did not even have a rail connection, instead being served by canal. The book explains what portland cement is, how it is made and why the mineral deposits in this area of Oxfordshire were well suited to its manufacture. The development of the Oxford Portland Cement Company, the move from Kirtlington to Shipton-on-Cherwell and the subsequent changes of ownership are chronicled. The book concludes with the demise of the Shipton works in the 1980s after plans to modernise the plant and extend the quarries had come to nothing (in part because British Rail were not interested in taking extra rail traffic).