Craigleith Quarry

Today's the day ............................. to extract

This is a little bit of what was once an enormous quarry on the west side of Edinburgh. 

Craigleith Quarry was the largest and best known of Edinburgh's quarries, with a world-wide reputation for producing building stone of the highest quality. It provided most of the building stone for Edinburgh's New Town, and exported stone to London, Europe and the United States.  The quarry was active for over 300 years and the final massive hole had faces 110 metres high.

Active quarrying ceased in 1942 and after the 2nd World War it was used as a dump for inert waste. In the early 1990s, building work began to create the large Craigleith Retail Park which is how it is nowadays.  Thankfully, they did leave bits of it as a nature reserve, which is where this picture was taken ................................