Camstone Quarry

The Camstone Quarry is an old stone-working on the eastern slopes of Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh's Holyrood Park, overlooking Hunter's Bog. It is not known when quarrying began, but sandstone was extracted from here between 1529 and 1536 to build the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Quarrying seems to have continued into the early 19th C. The workings are shallow, with the dolerite sill which forms Salisbury Crags forming their base. The rocks are bedded sandstone and shales of the Cementstone Group of Carboniferous age. Some of the sandstones contain red nodular concretions which formed near the surface in seasonally arid conditions. They also show trace fossils (worm casts), together with ripple marks formed on an ancient beach and mud-cracks providing further evidence that this shallow-marine environment dried out.


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