Rubislaw Quarry is a quarry situated at the Hill of Rubislaw in the west end of the city of

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The quarry is one of the biggest man-made holes in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

at approximately 466ft. (142m) deep, and with a diameter of 394 ft. (120m). Since its closure in 1971, it has filled with water and is currently inaccessible to the public. As late as the 1800s, the quarry would have stood on the farmland surrounding Aberdeen but slowly it was encircled as the town grew into a city. In the present day, the quarry's situation feels unusual, sited on a main road, sandwiched between residential areas on three sides and a business park to the north. An estimated six million tonnes of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

were extracted from the quarry over a period of 200 hundred years which directly contributed to Aberdeen's reputation as the ''Granite City''. The majority of prestigious buildings erected in Aberdeen in the late 18th century and early 19th century were made from the quarry's contents, designed by the likes of John Smith and Archibald Simpson. One local building of particular note is

Marischal College Marischal College ( ) is a large granite building on Broad Street in the centre of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, and since 2011 has acted as the headquarters of Aberdeen City Council. However, the building was constructed for and is on long- ...

, the second largest granite building in the world and the current headquarters of

Aberdeen City Council gd, Comhairle Cathair Obar Dheathain , native_name_lang = , other_name = , image_skyline = Town House, Municipal Offices and Court Houses in Aberdeen.jpg , image_caption ...

. The granite from the quarry was known for its quality and was used, for example, in

Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at the ...

in London, the terrace of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

and the

Forth Bridge The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...

. The extracts from Rubislaw Quarry are described as being 'blue granite' or 'grey granite', as opposed to the 'red granite' found in quarries near

Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of the district), with a population of 18,537 at the 2011 Census. ...

. The colour depends on the hue of quartz and feldspar, and its ratio with mica.

Matthew Forster Heddle Matthew Forster Heddle FRSE (28 April 1828 – 19 November 1897) was a Scottish physician and amateur mineralogist active through the 19th century. Life He was born at Melsetter in Orkney, the son of Robert Heddle (1780–1842) and his wif ...

found the quarry a good source for the

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

tourmaline Tourmaline ( ) is a crystalline silicate mineral group in which boron is compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is a gemstone and can be found in a wide variety of colors. The ...

and

beryl Beryl ( ) is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium silicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2Si6O18. Well-known varieties of beryl include emerald and aquamarine. Naturally occurring, hexagonal crystals of beryl can be up to several mete ...

. Traces of

Emerald Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr. and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991) ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York, p ...

were also found.

History

Rubislaw quarry was opened in 1740. In 1778/9,

Aberdeen City Council gd, Comhairle Cathair Obar Dheathain , native_name_lang = , other_name = , image_skyline = Town House, Municipal Offices and Court Houses in Aberdeen.jpg , image_caption ...

sold it to a businessman for £13, as it was not thought to be a source of good building material. An advert in the Aberdeen Journal of 16 May 1791 states that a seven year lease is to be sold by public auction, and advising that a new road for access is being constructed by the owners. In early 1879, an initiative by the ''Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor'' resulted in up to 350 unemployed men presenting themselves to the quarry to be employed in breaking stones. December 1889 saw the establishment of the ''Rubislaw Granite Company Limited'' to take over ownership from Mr William Gibb of ''John Gibb & Son'' due to ill health. William Gibb was to remain a Director but was joined by four others: Robert G. Wilson, Roderick Mackay, Forbes Manson, and Charles Christie. An assessment was given that there was almost 4 million tonnes of 'superior rock' ready for extraction at a likely pace of 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes per year. Profit per tonne was stated to be 1 shilling, 7 pence. During this process, the currently leaseholders - 'Alex MacDonald & Co Limited' - lost their lease. In 1926, George Hutcheon Jones was killed after slipping on a grassy slope at the quarry and falling to the foot of the quarry, reported to be 320 feet. Similarly, in 1936 a man was reported as having fallen over 400 feet into the quarry. The quarry closed in 1971. In 2010 the quarry was acquired by former oil consultant Sandy Whyte and Hugh Black, the former managing director of a construction company. The sale price is believed to have been £60,000. In December 2022, plans to reopen the quarry for watersports operated by Sport Aberdeen were announced. File:Masons At Work Rubislaw Quarry - George Washington Wilson - ABDMS022060.2.jpg, alt=men working on a large block of stone, Masons At Work Rubislaw Quarry - George Washington Wilson File:Rubislaw Quarry - George Washington Wilson - ABDMS026037.jpg, alt=sepia photograph of large quarry, Rubislaw Quarry - George Washington Wilson File:Rubislaw Quarry by Watson Charlton - Watson Charlton - ABDAG009561.jpg, alt=watercolour painting of large quarry, Rubislaw Quarry - Watson Charlton

References

External links

Aberdeen - official guideBBC articleThe Rubislaw Granite Quarry, Aberdeenshire, from a sketch by S. Read, in ''The Illustrated London News'', 20 April 1862, pp. 410
{{Coord, 57.1401, -2.1485, display=title Geography of Aberdeen Quarries in Scotland Granite quarries 1740 establishments in Great Britain