Newry Granite Quarries

Overview

A cluster of quarries that once made a Manchester Town Hall pillar and half the paving setts of Belfast out of the same grey-blue granite, employing the better part of a thousand men at its Edwardian peak.

History

Granite from the hills around Newry became one of the town's chief exports through the 19th century, worked from a scatter of quarries rather than one dominant site. The oldest, Moor Quarry, was worked by Hugh Campbell & Sons from the 1840s, sending around 200 tons of granite a week to Irish and British markets by 1867 and adding a steam polishing works in the mid-1870s sufficiently accomplished to win a medal for a polished granite vase at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. W. J. Sturgeon opened a quarry at Ballynacraig in 1891, employing 70 men within a decade, while the United Newry Granite Company worked quarries at Ballynacraig and Altnaveigh, supplying polished stones up to 21 feet long for Manchester Town Hall, completed in 1877. Newry Quarries Ltd worked the older Goraghwood and Corrin quarries, providing stone for landmarks including Newry's own Post Office, and Charles Ewen & Sons ran both quarrying and monumental works employing 48 men. Latt Quarry supplied granite for the Craigmore Viaduct, opened in 1852. The industry peaked around 1900, employing roughly 850 workers across the district, with paving setts — cut granite blocks for street surfaces — its dominant export by then, some 26,000 tons of them shipped annually, alongside dressed building stone and monumental and ornamental work.

Geology

The stone is Newry granodiorite, part of the Newry Igneous Complex, a body of granite and related rock intruded in the late Palaeozoic and exposed across the hills surrounding the town. It is generally greyish-blue, with the mineral composition and colour varying enough between individual quarries that different pits within the same district produced noticeably different-looking stone.

Workings

Quarrying by drilling and blasting at each of the district's separate pits, with cutting, dressing and, at the larger operations such as Moor Quarry, steam-powered polishing carried out on site before the stone was moved to market — dressed and polished stone for buildings and monuments at the higher end, and simple cut paving setts, the largest single export by 1900, at the other.

Closure

No single closure date applies to a district worked by many separate quarries over more than a century; production and employment declined through the 20th century from the roughly 850-strong Edwardian peak as demand for dressed stone and granite setts fell away.

What remains

Individual former quarries around Newry survive in varying states of abandonment and, in places, continued small-scale working; the broader Newry granodiorite is still recognised as a significant Northern Ireland building stone resource.

Scattered former quarry faces and spoil at Ballynacraig, Altnaveigh, Goraghwood, Corrin and Moor Quarry, and the legacy of Newry granite in the town's own 19th-century buildings, paving setts and monuments.

Redevelopment

None uniform — individual former quarry sites have been left, reclaimed or, in a few cases, kept in intermittent small-scale use.

This is an active mining operation. It is not open to public access, and this entry describes its history and general location only.

Recorded claims

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

• Moor Quarry, the district's oldest, was worked by Hugh Campbell & Sons from the 1840s, sending about 200 tons of granite a week to market by 1867. ¹
• The United Newry Granite Company's Ballynacraig and Altnaveigh quarries supplied polished granite pillars up to 21 ft long for Manchester Town Hall, completed in 1877. ¹
• The stone is Newry granodiorite, part of the late Palaeozoic Newry Igneous Complex. ²
• The industry peaked around 1900 with roughly 850 workers across the district's several quarries, exporting about 26,000 tons of granite paving setts annually alongside dressed building and monumental stone. ¹

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Sources

1. (primary) History of Granite Quarries in the Newry Area — newry.ie
2. (primary) Granodiorite plutons, Newry Igneous Complex — British Geological Survey

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026