Corncockle Quarry was a large and historically important

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

near

Templand Templand is a village in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, located around northwest of Lockerbie. Templand was built during the Industrial Revolution. When the nearby sandstone quarry ( Corncockle Quarry) was built it became home to many quarry worke ...

in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Stone from here was used in the late Victorian era to build tenements in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and also to construct New York ' brownstones'.

Geology

The sandstone in Corncockle Quarry is the Corncockle Sandstone Formation and dates from the Cisuralian, the Lower

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

between 298.9 - 272.3 Mya. Fossil footprints were found there in the early 1800s, uncovered during quarrying. They are often wrongly referred to as dinosaur footprints, but dinosaurs did not exist at this time. They belong instead to other extinct reptiles such as

therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more ...

s - the group that would eventually lead to mammals, and includes animals like '' Dimetrodon''. The footprints from Corncockle were the first ever described scientifically, by Mr. J Grierson, and the Reverend

Henry Duncan Henry Duncan may refer to: * Henry Duncan (minister) (1774–1846), Scottish minister, geologist and social reformer; founder of the savings bank movement * Henry Duncan (naval officer, born 1735) (1735–1814), Naval captain and Deputy Comptroller ...

in 1828. Rev Duncan then published his paper on the footprints in 1831. Chelichnus duncani

The name for the study of fossil footprints and other trace marks, ichnology, was coined by Sir William Jardine, whose book ''The Ichnology of Annadale'' was about the trackways found in Corncockle Quarry, part of his ancestral estate. The prints were then described by

William Buckland William Buckland DD, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist. Buckland wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named ' ...

following correspondence with Rev Duncan. The fossils are displayed at Dumfries Museum and the

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...

, Edinburgh.

Commercial Use

The stone in Corncockle Quarry - now called Dunhouse Quarry - is currently extracted by Dunhouse. At its peak the quarry was connected to the

Caledonian Main Line The Caledonian Railway main line in Scotland connected Glasgow and Edinburgh with Carlisle, via Carstairs and Beattock. It was opened in 1847 by the Caledonian Railway. The approach to Glasgow used railways already built, primarily for mineral ...

by a mineral railway. It was the subject of a lithograph by William Jardine.

References

Dumfriesshire Quarries in Scotland {{mining-stub