Tiree, Balephetrish Limestone Quarry
Limestone Quarry (Post Medieval)
Site Name Tiree, Balephetrish Limestone Quarry
Classification Limestone Quarry (Post Medieval)
Canmore ID 70243
Site Number NM04NW 34
NGR NM 015 471
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/70243
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Tiree
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NM04NW 34 015 471
Not to be confused with Balephetrish marble quarry (NM 014 473), for which see NM04NW 33.
A ridge of limestone outcrops in an area some 300m S of the marble-quarry (NM04NW 33). It is shown on a map of 1768, and the workings were abandoned some time before 1800.
Visited by RCAHMS June 1974.
RCAHMS 1980.
Scheduled as Balephetrish, limestone quarry.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 14 January 2002.
Field Visit (June 1974)
A ridge of re-crystallised limestone outcrops in an area approximately 300 m S of the marble-quarry (RCAHMS 1980, No. 378) and rather more than 50 m S of the road that skirts the S side of Balephetrish Hill. Limestone appears to have been obtained from the grikes on the surface of the outcrop, and has also been quarried from the N side of the ridge. A small quarry with worked faces no more than about 1·8 m in maximum height is situated near the NW end of the ridge, and one detached block at this quarry bears wedge-marks spaced at 0.13 m centres.
This limestone outcrop was marked on Turnbull's map of Tiree of 1768, and was probably the source of the lime mortar utilized in the construction of Island House (No. 355) in 1748 and of the parish church (cf. RCAHMS 1980, No. 311) in 1776 (3). The quarry-workings had apparently lain abandoned for some time before 1800 (4).
RCAHMS 1980, visited June 1974
(3) NSA, vii (Argyll), 201-2.
(4) Jameson, R, Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800), ii, 30.
