Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Edinburgh, Holyrood Park, Salisbury Crags

Quarry(S) (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Edinburgh, Holyrood Park, Salisbury Crags

Classification Quarry(S) (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Queen's Park; Radical Road

Canmore ID 157250

Site Number NT27SE 3946

NGR NT 2725 7280

NGR Description NT 2725 7280 to NT 2681 7313

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/157250

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

Toggle Aerial | View on large map

Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT27SE 3946 2725 7280 to 2681 7313

For possibly-associated magazine (the 'Powder House') at NT 2725 7277, see NT27SE 3969.

A cultural heritage survey of Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, was undertaken in February 1996. The survey was designed to identify and evaluate the archaeological remains present withing Holyrood Park, through the examination of desk-based sources and a field inspection. A large number of sites were already recorded within the park and are listed in the NMRS. The following list is of sites not previously recorded (excluding rig and furrow and unassociated field banks), the majority of which relate to quarrying activities or are features associated with 19th-century use and management of the park.

NT 270 729 Quarries.

Full details will be lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Alexander 1996

A cultural heritage survey of Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, was undertaken in February 1996. The survey was designed to identify and evaluate the archaeological remains present withing Holyrood Park, through the examination of desk-based sources and a field inspection. A large number of sites were already recorded within the park and are listed in the NMRS. The following list is of sites not previously recorded (excluding rig and furrow and unassociated field banks), the majority of which relate to quarrying activities or are features associated with 19th-century use and management of the park.

NT 2721 7279 - Road.

NT 2704 7370

A full report will be lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Alexander 1996.

Activities

Field Visit (15 December 1998)

The volcanic rock (dolerite) of Salisbury Crags was quarried extensively from at least the middle of the 17th century, and was especially favoured for its hard, durable properties. Several documentary references from this period record its use as 'calsay stanes', and such was its suitability for street paving that quantities were sent as far afield as London. Between 1810 and 1820, it was used to pave Regent Road and Waterloo Place. Quarrying was overseen by the Earls of Haddington, Hereditary Keepers of the Royal Park, and was restricted by the technology of the day. However, with the introduction of new techniques at the beginning of the 19th century, in particular the use of explosives, extraction escalated to such an extent that public pressure resulted in a legal action being raised against the Earls of Haddington to prevent further destruction. First raised in the Court of Session in 1819, it was not until 1831 that the matter was resolved, with the ruling of the House of Lords that the Earls of Haddington had no right of title to remove stone from the Park. In 1845, the 9th Earl of Haddington, received over #30,000 as compensation for the surrender of the office of Keeper of the Royal Park.

Today the scale of extraction is best appreciated from the Radical Road, which was constructed in the 1820's by unemployed weavers. This route skirts along the base of the cliffs at the top of the steep scree slope, and for part of its course probably replaces an original access route into the quarries. Fragments of several other tracks survive at the foot of the scree slope (NT27SE 3948), and these too are probably associated with quarrying. The main quarries, however, extend for a distance of about 600m NW from the SE end of the Crags, where there are at least three deep gouges into the cliff-face, the largest of which measures about 100m by 40m. Blocks of dolerite lie strewn across the floor of the quarries, and the spoil appears to have been dumped directly down the scree slope. At the N end of the Crags, another quarry, measuring about 50m by 30m, has removed a large section of the cliff-face; this is approached by a track from the NE, which survives as a terrace below the Radical Road (centred NT 2695 7354). This quarry is annotated as an old whinstone quarry on the OS 1:1056 map in 1854 (Edinburgh and its environs 1854, sheet 37). The quarries are plotted at 1:5,550 on an archaeological map of Holyrood Park (RCAHMS 1999).

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG), 15 December 1998.

NMRS, MS/726/96 (63-4, nos. 57-8); RCAHMS 1999.

Watching Brief (8 September 2008 - 14 October 2008)

A series of watching briefs was maintained to monitor work undertaken by contractors to stabilise the cliff face known as Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh. This entailed periodic site visits over the five weeks of the project to ensure no features of archaeological importance were under threat. There were no finds or features of archaeological significance encountered during these works.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Murray 2008

OASIS ID: kirkdale1-249675

Kirkdale Archaeology

References

MyCanmore Image Contributions


Contribute an Image

MyCanmore Text Contributions