Gunnerton Quarry

Overview

A North Tyne building-stone quarry, also called Camp Hill, working a creamy white sandstone of the Middle Limestone Group. It employed seventy-two men in 1896, sent stone to Edinburgh by rail in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and is still worked today.

History

Gunnerton Quarry, recorded in the 1896 List of Quarries as Camp Hill Quarry, lies on the high ground north of Gunnerton in the North Tyne valley, and was reached by its own waggonway, which ran about two miles north from beside Barrasford Quarry on the Border Counties Railway. The 1896 list shows it working sandstone with seventy-two men, and the quarry belongs to the great late-nineteenth-century expansion of Northumberland building-stone quarrying: Gunnerton stands with Black Pasture, Blaxter, Cocklaw, Cragg, Deadwater, Doddington, Glanton Pike, Greenlaw and West Woodburn among the quarries that supplied sandstone through northern England and central Scotland for the growth of Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. As demand for Scottish Midland Valley stone fell away, the large quarries in the Lower Carboniferous sandstones of northern England took the work, and Gunnerton, Prudham, Doddington and Cragg all sent stone to Edinburgh in the closing years of that century as the rail links improved.

Gunnerton stone went into tenements at Morningside in Edinburgh in 1885 and into George Craig's reconstruction of the former Yardheads School in Giles Street, Leith, in 1887, though by 1892 it was already showing signs of weathering at the Meadows Pillars. Most of Northumberland's building-stone quarries closed by the middle of the twentieth century, and those that survived were the mechanised ones with a proven stone and a wide market. Gunnerton is one of them: the quarry is worked today as Camphill by Border Stone Quarries Limited, its stone still sold under the Camphill name for masonry, paving and flooring, and it has been used again in recent years in Edinburgh.

Geology

The quarry works the Camphill Sandstone, a bed of the Middle Limestone Group of the Lower Carboniferous, exposed here in a face 15 to 20 m thick, coarse-grained and cross-bedded. Sandstones of the same group were worked at Cocklaw, Prudham, Purdovanlix and Denwick. The dressed stone is described as a medium hard, fine to medium grained, creamy white sandstone with dark bed markings and occasional buff tones — a finer grade than the bed description suggests. This is sandstone country rather than whinstone: the Whin Sill dolerite worked at Barrasford, two miles south, and the Oxford Limestone of Gunnerton Crag are separate rocks, as are the limestone quarries and lime kilns that served local agriculture at Gunnerton Burn and Gunnerton Nick.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

An open building-stone quarry on the sandstone outcrop at Camp Hill, served in its early life by the Gunnerton Quarry Waggonway, which ran about two miles north from beside Barrasford Quarry, on the west side of that quarry's own siding off the Border Counties Railway. Northumberland's major stone quarries of the period used steam cranes to hoist stone onto narrow-gauge mineral railways feeding the main-line sidings, and developed the quarrying, splitting, blasting, cutting and dressing skills that put the region at the front of the industry. The quarry is worked today for masonry, walling, cladding, dressed and carved stone, paving and steps.

Closure

The quarry has not closed. The Gunnerton Quarry Waggonway was gone before it: the 1895 survey shows it in place, and by 1920 it is marked as an old waggonway with the track lifted. The Border Counties Railway itself closed in 1958.

What remains

In production, worked as Camphill Quarry by Border Stone Quarries Limited of Gunnerton, with good reserves of stone reported available.

The quarry itself is a working face rather than a remain. The trackbed of the Gunnerton Quarry Waggonway can be traced north from Barrasford, and the unrelated lime kiln at Gunnerton Nick survives with its collapsed pot and its arch.

Redevelopment

None: the quarry has been in continuous or intermittent production for more than a century and is still being worked.

Related mines

• Barrasford Quarry — Two miles apart on the same side of the North Tyne, and the Gunnerton Quarry Waggonway ran north from immediately west of Barrasford Quarry's siding. They work different rocks: whinstone at Barrasford, Camphill Sandstone here.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• As dressed stone it is described by the Survey as a medium hard, fine grained, creamy white sandstone of the Middle Limestone Group, and by its present supplier as medium grained and creamy white with dark bed markings and occasional buff tones — both finer than the coarse-grained bed of the quarry face. (disputed) ^3,4

Recorded claims

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

• The 1896 List of Quarries records Camp Hill Quarry at Gunnerton, seven and a half miles north north west of Hexham, working sandstone with seventy-two employed. ¹
• Gunnerton Quarry exposes a 15 to 20 m thick coarse-grained, cross-bedded sandstone known as the Camphill Sandstone, one of the sandstones of the Middle Limestone Group worked in the district alongside Cocklaw, Prudham, Purdovanlix and Denwick. ²
• As dressed stone it is described by the Survey as a medium hard, fine grained, creamy white sandstone of the Middle Limestone Group, and by its present supplier as medium grained and creamy white with dark bed markings and occasional buff tones — both finer than the coarse-grained bed of the quarry face. (disputed) ^3,4
• Gunnerton stone was used in 1885 in the building of tenements in Morningside, Edinburgh, and in 1887 in George Craig's reconstruction of the former Yardheads School in Giles Street, Leith; by 1892 it was already showing signs of weathering at the Meadows Pillars. ³
• As demand for Scottish Midland Valley sandstone declined, the large quarries in the Lower Carboniferous sandstones of northern England took the work, and Gunnerton, Prudham, Doddington and Cragg all supplied stone to Edinburgh in the closing years of the nineteenth century as rail links improved. ³
• Gunnerton stands among the major Northumberland quarries — with Black Pasture, Blaxter, Cocklaw, Cragg, Deadwater, Doddington, Glanton Pike, Greenlaw and West Woodburn — that supplied vast quantities of sandstone through northern England and central Scotland for the growth of Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. ⁵
• The Gunnerton Quarry Waggonway ran north to the quarry from immediately west of Barrasford Quarry, which was itself served by a siding off the Border Counties Railway; that railway closed in 1958. ⁶
• The quarry is worked today as Camphill Quarry by Border Stone Quarries Limited of Gunnerton, Northumberland. ⁷
• The stone, marketed as Camphill and previously known as Gunnerton, is described as quarried at Barrasford near Hexham and suitable for load-bearing masonry, walling, cladding, dressed and carved stone, paving, flooring and external steps, with good reserves available. ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Camp Hill Quarry — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Building stones of Edinburgh: stratigraphy and origin of sandstones — British Geological Survey (Earthwise)
3. (primary) Building stones in Edinburgh from the Carboniferous of the Scottish Borders and England — British Geological Survey (Earthwise)
4. (secondary) Camphill Sandstone — Dunedin Stone Ltd
5. (secondary) Building stone and the built heritage, Northumberland geodiversity — British Geological Survey, via the Scottish Geology Trust GeoGuide
6. (secondary) Barrasford Quarry — Railscot
7. (secondary) Camphill Quarry — Stone Specialist

Record created: 23 September 2026 · Last researched: 28 September 2026