Old Town Quarry

Old Town Quarry

This is the site of Weston’s quarry which was a traditional 'parish quarry': the right to win stone there was allocated, by the Enclosure Award of 1815, to local owners and occupiers. In 1875 there were 200 people claiming this right. Many buildings in the booming Victorian resort were made of stone won by these independent local quarrymen, who combined this activity with other trades, especially fishing. Enclosure led to an increase in demand for stone, not only for the growing town but for new roads and for many miles of walls which now enclosed previously open land for the new owners. Some of the more impressive villas on the hillside are built in their own private quarries, but it was the Town Quarry that provided most of the stone for the extensive building developments of the 19th century.

The stone is predominantly grey in colour but blocks of pink limestone, stained due to the presence of iron, were in special demand for ornamental purposes. One mansion, built entirely of pink limestone was named ‘Villa Rosa’. The bridge which linked the house to part of its garden can still be seen spanning Shrubbery Road.

Limestone from the quarry was roughly squared or 'dressed' with a specialist hammer and chisel for use in the more prestigious buildings, or used as irregularly shaped 'random' stone in the cheaper villas, outbuildings and garden walls. The sheer impossibility of cutting it precisely led to the use of alternative materials for the door and window openings of houses, the ‘quoins’ or corner stones, and for decoration. In some cases brick was used, but in the 19th century town the favourite was a softer form of limestone which was more easily sawn and carved. This comes from more recent strata and is called Bath Stone, because of its origins near Bath and its use there.

The origins of limestone

View from Information Boards

The rock you see in front of you is Carboniferous Limestone which began life some 350 million years ago. Limestone (Calcium Carbonate) is a sedimentary rock, formed' from the remains of corals and shellfish which lived in a warm tropical sea which covered the area.

Limestone formed in clearly defined layers or 'strata', corresponding to periods of deposition. The Carboniferous Period was brought to an end by a movement of the tectonic plates which form the earth’s surface. This cataclysm tilted and buckled the rock straw. Thus, when the strata are exposed, in a quarry or a natural cliff, they are usually very far from horizontal. Here they slope down to the south. Pressure has also produced ‘faults', one of which you can see in the exposed rock face where the beds on one side of rho fault line appear some 40 feet lower than the equivalent beds on the other side. The great mountain ranges produced by these earth movements have been reduced by erosion to their present modest proportions.

Although it is a very hard rock, Carboniferous Limestone is susceptible to chemical attack. Rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or from the soil and forms a dilute carbonic acid, which tends to dissolve the rock, exploiting lines of weakness and creating hollows and caves. Mendip Hills contain some particularly impressive and famous cave systems, but many smaller examples exist locally, including two in the Town Quarry.

Cache

Quick earthcache, coordinates given are in the Old Town Quarry. Information boards about quarry can be found nearby this coords. Also Car Park is avalaible nearby in the quarry, as well as toilets, caffe and gallery. Please note there is no public access to the quarry on Monday and on Tuesday. You can also park outside the quarry on the street.