An historical and petrological assessment of Pitairlie Quarry, Angus.

31 Pages·2012·3.36 MB·English

An historical and petrological
assessment of Pitairlie Quarry,
Angus

Minerals Programme
Internal Report OR/11/009

BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
MINERALS & WASTE PROGRAMME
OPEN REPORT OR/11/009

An historical and petrological
assessment of Pitairlie Quarry,
Angus
Paul A. Everett, Emily A. Tracey, Luis Albornoz-Parra
and Martin R Gillespie

The National Grid and other
Ordnance Survey data are used
with the permission of the
Contributors
Controller of Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office.
Dr. Ewan K. Hyslop, David Entwisle
Licence No: 100017897/2010.

Keywords
Pitairlie, quarry, Scotland,
sandstone, paving stone,
resource, minerals, petrology
Bibliographical reference
EVERETT, P A, TRACEY, E A,
ALBORNOZ-PARRA, L AND
GILLESPIE, M R. 2011. An
historical and petrological
assessment of Pitairlie Quarry,
Angus. British Geological Survey
Open Report, OR/11/009. 31pp.
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Maps and diagrams in this report
use topography based on
Ordnance Survey mapping.

© NERC 2011. All rights reserved Keyworth, Nottingham British Geological Survey 2011
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Summary
Pitairlie Quarry, near Monikie in Angus, Scotland probably began operating in the mid 19th
century, exploiting layers of sandstone and siltstone within the Dundee Flagstone Formation
(part of the Old Red Sandstone Supergroup). The flaggy stone lends itself to paving, and
much of the product was probably used for this purpose. Many other quarries in the local area,
including the relatively well known and much bigger Carmyllie Quarry, have exploited the
same geological formation to supply significant volumes of building stone in the past.
Pitairlie Quarry ceased operations in 1915 but has been recently re-opened by the Denfind
Stone company. Operations at the quarry currently consist of stone recycling from spoil
heaps, but the owners intend to submit a planning application to extract reserves of in-situ
stone. This report describes the historical development of quarrying at Pitairlie and presents a
petrological assessment of the stone, to inform the planning application.
Stone from the Dundee Flagstone Formation, in particular from Carmyllie Quarry, has been
important historically for building and paving, both in the local area and further afield.
Pitairlie stone shares many of the petrological characteristics of Carmyllie stone (though they
can both vary somewhat in colour), and should in many cases provide a good substitute for
Carmyllie stone where repairs are required.

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VERSION 1.0 25 FEBRUARY 2011

Contents
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... i
Contents ......................................................................................................................................... ii
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
2 Historical development of Pitairlie Quarry ......................................................................... 2
3 Geological setting of Pitairlie Quarry .................................................................................. 7
4 Description of Pitairlie stone samples .................................................................................. 9
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 9
4.2 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 9
4.3 Petrographic descriptions of Pitairlie Quarry stone ..................................................... 10
5 Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 14
5.1 A comparison of Pitairlie and Carmyllie stone ............................................................ 14
5.2 Comparison of Pitairlie stone and currently available paving stones .......................... 14
6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 19
References .................................................................................................................................... 20
Appendix 1 Compressive Strength tests.............................................................................. 21
Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 21
Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 21
Results .................................................................................................................................... 21
Appendix 2 Petrographic analysis of Carmyllie Quarry flagstone .................................. 22
Appendix 3 Case studies from recent conservation projects ............................................ 24
Acheson house ....................................................................................................................... 24
Scotsman steps flagstones ...................................................................................................... 24
Edinburgh Castle .................................................................................................................... 25

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1 Introduction
The British Geological Survey (BGS) has been commissioned by the Scottish Stone Liaison
Group (SSLG) to investigate the building stone resource at Pitairlie Quarry. The purpose of this
report is to document new and existing technical and historical information for Pitairlie stone to
inform a planning application to extract new reserves of stone from the quarry.
The quarry is located at grid reference [NO 500373], just outside the village of Monikie and
approximately 7 miles northeast of Dundee, in the Angus district of Scotland (Figure 1). Running
east to west, the Downie Hills divide the local area into several districts. Pitairlie Quarry is located
on the east side of Denfind, a winding ravine that deeply bisects the range.

Figure 1. Current Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale map showing the location of Pitairlie Quarry.
Grid lines are 1 kilometre apart.
The newly re-opened quarry is currently supplying material from disused spoil heaps for dry
stane dyking, but reserves of in situ material are suitable for extraction. Exposures at the quarry
display bluish grey sandstone and siltstone that locally have a well bedded, flaggy character
(Figure 2).
The documented history of stone production at Pitairlie Quarry is described in Section 2. The
geological setting of the quarry is described briefly in Section 3, and a petrographic assessment
of samples of Pitairlie stone is presented in Section 4. In Section 5, Pitairlie stone is compared
with several other stones currently used for paving in the UK, and with the historically important
Carmyllie stone from the nearby Carmyllie Quarry. The results of a Compressive Strength test
on two samples of Pitairlie stone are presented in Appendix 1, and a petrographic analysis of a
sample of Carmyllie stone is presented in Appendix 2. Several examples of recent built-heritage
conservation projects in which Pitairlie stone has been used are described in Appendix 3.
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VERSION 1.0 25 FEBRUARY 2011

Figure 2. Exposed bedrock in Pitairlie Quarry (January 2009), illustrating the reserves of bluish
grey stone. The flaggy character of the stone (i.e. a propensity to split along bedding, yielding
tabular blocks) is clearly visible.

2 Historical development of Pitairlie Quarry
The historical development of operations at Pitairlie Quarry has been assessed through an
examination of archival records and historical maps.
The Statistical Accounts for Scotland (1791-9) described a “a most valuable bed of pavement”
(i.e. fissile stone) which begins at Leysmill Quarry on the estate of Kinblethmont, and extends
south through ground holding the Carmyllie, Smithfield, Wellbank, and Duntrune quarries
(Figure 3 Pitairlie Quarry lies in the same tract of land and exploits the same geological
formation (see Section 3 Geological setting of Pitairlie Quarry).
This group of quarries is further described in David Bremnar’s The Industries of Scotland: Their
Rise, Progress, and Present Condition (1869). There, the quarries are referred to as the
Forfarshire pavement quarries - Forfarshire being an old county, which disappeared following
the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1974. The area extended from Leysmill (east) to
Glamis Castle (west) and from Montreathmont Moor (north) to the Sidlaw Hills (south), all
situated in the southern region of the former county. The ‘pavement’ stone produced in this
region was commercially known as ‘Arbroath Pavement’. Bremnar described the material as
“solid in composition, durable, and easily worked and dressed.” It was used not only for paving,
but also for interior works.
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VERSION 1.0 25 FEBRUARY 2011

Figure 3. Location of some of the Forfarshire pavement quarries from which building stone
known commercially during the 19th and 20th centuries as “Arbroath Pavement” was extracted.
See Figure 9 for a key to the geological base.

During the mid-19th century, the operations at Pitairlie Quarry employed fifty men (Bremnar).
Operations continued into the 20th century. The following series of historical maps illustrates
this period of development.
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VERSION 1.0 25 FEBRUARY 2011
Figure 4. 1865 Ordnance Survey map. Pitairlie Quarry is fairly small at this time and unmarked.

Figure 5. Hand-annotated geological field slip based on the 1865 Ordnance Survey map. This
field slip describes the site of Pitairlie Quarry as consisting of “thin bedded hard blue sandstone
flags and shale with till and debris atop. Ripple marks.”

The greatest activity surrounding the quarry occurs between the 1865 and the 1892 (Forfarshire)
Ordnance Survey maps. On the 1892 map (no image available) the quarry site located on the
1865 map is now labelled ‘quarry’; however, three additional ‘quarry’ locations have also been
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