Brunton Bank Quarry

Overview

Brunton Bank Quarry is a small disused quarry at High Brunton in south-west Northumberland, immediately north of the B6318 and of Hadrian's Wall. It worked the Great Limestone, and it is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Geological Conservation Review site for what its faces expose: the reef-like Chaetetes Band at the base of that limestone, and the type locality of the fossil Calcifolium bruntonense, which carries the quarry's name.

History

The quarry's working history is not recorded in anything read for this record — neither when it opened nor when it stopped, who worked it, nor what the stone was used for. It was disused by 1969, when the site was notified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Its documented life is a scientific one. The section here was described by Johnson in 1958, who recorded a bed of fossiliferous shale at this level in the Great Limestone and, beneath it, a limestone bed about a metre thick distinguished by the abundance of the sclerosponge Chaetetes depressus — the Chaetetes Band, which takes its name from this work and which the British Geological Survey still uses as a marker across the Morpeth and adjoining districts. The quarry became the standard section for it. Brunton Bank is now one of a number of sites notified for the Namurian Great Limestone, along with Sleightholme Beck Gorge and West Rigg Open Cutting to the south in County Durham. Its condition was judged favourable at an inspection in 2013, which noted recent scrub clearance.

Geology

The quarry exposes the base of the Namurian Great Limestone, the thickest and most persistent limestone of the Northumberland Carboniferous and the one that gave the district its lime trade. Its lower beds here are grey, wavy-bedded, fine-grained limestones with thin or absent shale partings, collectively the Main Posts, approximately 6.5 m thick; a prominent shale parting about 0.2 m thick sits at their base. Beneath that shale is the Chaetetes Band, a limestone bed roughly 1.0 m thick crowded with the sclerosponge Chaetetes depressus, which grew in reef-like biostromal sheets rather than as a true reef. The exposure is regarded as an excellent one and the quarry is a leading site for study of the band's flora, whose affinities remain a subject of research. It is the type locality of Calcifolium bruntonense, named for the place. A conspicuous feature of the Great Limestone across this district is the presence of small, usually anticlinal folds known locally as rolls, typically only a few metres in amplitude and wavelength. An ancient tumulus lies within the boundary of the site.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (surviving physical example)

Workings

A small quarry of about 2.18 hectares, cut into the Great Limestone at an elevation between roughly 150 and 160 metres, on the north side of the B6318 — the military road that runs along the line of Hadrian's Wall — and about 0.2 miles north of Turret 26A. Nothing read for this record describes the method of working, the plant, or whether the stone was burnt for lime on site.

Closure

The quarry was already disused when the site was notified as an SSSI in 1969. No closure date or reason has been found; the record says so rather than guessing at one.

What remains

Disused and protected. The condition of the site was judged favourable at an inspection in March 2013, which noted recent scrub clearance — the ordinary threat to a small geological SSSI being that vegetation grows over the very faces it was notified for.

The quarry faces themselves, kept clear as the scientific interest of the site, together with an ancient tumulus recorded within the site boundary.

Nearby mines

• Fallowfield Mine — 2.3 km S
• Stonecroft and Greyside Mine — 7.5 km W
• Settlingstones Mine — 8.3 km SW
• Water House Mine — 12.9 km SW

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Brunton Bank Quarry is a disused quarry designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, notified in 1969 and covering 2.18 hectares, at High Brunton some 0.7 miles south-west of Chollerford and 3.8 miles north of Hexham, north of the B6318 and Hadrian's Wall. ¹
• Johnson (1958) described at Brunton Bank Quarry a bed of fossiliferous shale in the Great Limestone and, beneath it, a limestone bed approximately 1.0 m thick distinguished by the abundance of the sclerosponge Chaetetes depressus. ²
• The lower Great Limestone here consists of grey, wavy-bedded, fine-grained limestones with thin or absent shale partings, collectively termed the Main Posts, approximately 6.5 m thick, with a prominent shale parting about 0.2 m thick at their base. ²
• The quarry is identified as an important geological site in the Geological Conservation Review, provides an excellent exposure of the reef-like biostromic Chaetetes Band, is a leading site for study of the affinities of its flora, and is the type locality of the fossil species Calcifolium bruntonense. ¹
• The condition of Brunton Bank Quarry was judged favourable in a 2013 inspection, which noted recent scrub clearance. ¹
• A conspicuous feature of the Great Limestone in the Morpeth and adjoining districts is the presence of small, usually anticlinal folds known locally as 'rolls', typically of only a few metres in amplitude and wavelength. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Brunton Bank Quarry — Wikipedia
2. (primary) Geology of the Morpeth district: Sheet description, 1:50,000 Sheet 14 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 5 September 2026