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Publication Account
Date 2013
Event ID 968070
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/968070
In the 18th century small-scale farmers worked sandstone quarries after seed time and stopped just before the harvest. At their peak period, about 1890, the total number of men employed reached 700. The quarries finally closed in 1951.
As the quarries deepened, portable wooden windmills were used to pump water and, around 1830, a culvert was dug at a depth of 40 feet, 180 yards long. In the 1880s windmills had been displaced by eight steam engines, for pumping and planing machines. A chimney survives at Slade farm. In 1854 a mineral railway was opened to transport the stone from quarries to the coast at Elliot, near Arbroath, a distance of five miles.
The 'pavement' rock of Carmyllie is fine-grained and bluish-green. Thick sandstone slabs were shipped from Arbroath to Leith, to London and other English and Scottish towns. Large quantities ready for use as paving were exported to Europe, Australia, North and South America. The stone is found in billiard tables, mangle stones, and cisterns and there was local demand for heavy grey roofing slates. Sandstone from Carmyllie is in the piers and abutments of the Forth Bridge (over 40,000 tons), the University of Glasgow,
Perth Station and Cologne Cathedral.
Ref: Alexander Mackie, The Edinburgh Geologist, Issue No 8.
M Watson, 2013
