The Quarry
This cache is located near the entrance to the Doulting stone quarry. This cache is not in the quarry and the quarry is not open to the public.
Doulting stone is one of the most important stones in Somerset. The stone features in Wells Cathedral, Glastonbury Abbey and small quantities can be found in the City of Bath, as it is the same type of stone as Bath stone. This quarry has been here since the Roman occupation. Evidence of this, was the unearthing of Doulting stone cut quoins, in the remains of a building in Shepton Mallet, next to Fosse Lane. The reserve of Doulting stone, an Inferior Oolite, can only be found in a small area around the village of Doulting, but Doulting stone is renowned for its' quality the world over.
In the picture on the right you can see the cutting tool used at this quarry. It is essentially a very large, very strong chainsaw mounted on a vehicle. This simply cuts through the stone and allows a large variety of sizes to be cut. As the quarry is very shallow, access for such vehicles is easy, and due to the nature of the stone, no other methods of extraction are particularly needed.
In the Victorian era, the company employed over 70 stone masons. It has recently been bought by a family who run it is an independant company.
The quarried stone is a layer of Oolite only about 2m thick, This was deposited in the mid-jurrasic age, when the area was under shallow water. Oolite is a sedimentary, and extremely crumbly stone, comprised of calcium carbonate in "egg-like" grains.
As asvised by FuchsiaMagic, this cache is located quite high up, you may need a boost if you are of the smaller persuasion, or to ask someone a little taller to reach it. (Or of course you can get onto the wall to retrieve it - be careful of brambles though!)
Please make sure the cache goes back where it was, and that the bag is protecting the log book.
I'm currently looking for people who might be able to help look after my caches whilst I'm away undertaking a doctorate. If you think you might be able to help, please do let me know by contacting me at geocachingjohn@googlemail.com (If you can't help maintain them long term, it would be wonderful if you could take along some spare logs/pencils/etc. to keep these caches alive, just in case)