Greenyards Shell Marl Pit Traditional Cache
Greenyards Shell Marl Pit
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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The cache is a short way up the improved public footpath from the Doune Road to Greenyards. This path interlinks with a number of others in the area. However, it does involve crossing the busy main road to get to the path, so be careful with children. It is dog & cycle friendly.
To the East of the path is the site of an old Shell Marl Pit.
Shell-marl is composed of animal shells dissolved. The colour is various, its hardness being sometimes soft and ductile, like clay; sometimes hard and solid, like stone; and sometimes it is extended into thin beds, like slate. Shellmarl is easily distinguished by the shells, which always appear in it.In the 18C the Scottish Farmer looked to land improvement in which they could make the soil more productive. Many farms around here had poorly and acidic patches of bog, moss and muir.
The Improver’s Movement through Lowland Scotland during the second half of the 18 century was presaged by expensive and costly programmes in which liming and marling occupied a central place.
Liming and Marling have taken place in Britain since the medieval times but it was not until the 18c that it became so widespread.
The substratum at Dunblane is mostly red sandstone; there are pits of shell marl, and lime is obtained with facility at the distance of a few miles, by the river Forth, and has been plentifully applied to the improvement of the land.
From a "A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland" -Samuel Lewis 1846
There is good parking in a layby on the Argaty rd.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gbc bs cbfg
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