Emborough Quarries () is a 1

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

(2.5 acre)

geological Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

at Emborough in the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, notified in 1971. The disused quarry has yielded a wide variety of remains of vertebrate fossils, amongst which the early reptiles are particularly well represented. Of special note is

Kuehneosaurus ''Kuehneosaurus'' is an extinct genus of Late Triassic kuehneosaurid reptile known from the Late Triassic ( Norian stage) of the Penarth Group of southwest England and the Steinmergel Group of Luxembourg. Temperature at this stage and region w ...

latus which is one of the earliest-known flying vertebrates. During the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

period of geological time, some 230 million years ago, the limestones now exposed on Mendip formed upland areas upon which a number of large rivers rose. Solution cavities were soon created in the land surface and material from the surrounding area was swept into the newly formed cave systems. Remains of the creatures living in the upland areas during this time were swept into these deposits and have now been exhumed by recent quarrying activities. Fresh material is brought to the surface with every rock fall and Emborough Quarries are a nationally important source of fossil vertebrate remains for research and study. This former Mendip quarry site, probably owned by Emborough Stone Co., a branch of Roads Reconstruction, Ltd., where

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

ore was once mined is now home to an assembly of contractor's plant (possibly o
Richard Wood (Engineering) Ltd
, cranes and machine tools. It is the location of Nettlebridge Viaduct, a seven-arch bridge that once carried the

Somerset and Dorset Railway The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreec ...

. The site was owned by Emborough Stone Co which was later bought by Roads Reconstruction Ltd. The rock quarried was carboniferous mountain limestone which was used for construction and railway ballast. There are 2 main quarries and several trial quarries. The site was previously used by the Emborough Brick Co for making clay bricks.

Blatchford Light Railway

The Blatchford Light Railway

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard-gauge railway, standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum r ...

is located within the quarry. This gauge railway was originally intended to serve a pre-cast concrete plant in the quarry, but after that enterprise failed, it was retained as a private railway. The line starts at an industrial building in the No. 1 quarry, passes under Nettlebridge Viaduct and loops round the lake in No. 2 quarry. The following industrial locomotives were present in 2011:

References

{{SSSIs Somerset geological Quarries in the Mendip Hills Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1971 Geology of Somerset

Blatchford Light Railway

See also

References