Scrabo Quarries

Overview

The quarries on Scrabo Hill above Newtownards worked a Triassic sandstone that has been cut since at least Anglo-Norman times — the oldest surviving use is in the thirteenth-century monastery at Greyabbey. Its variety of colour, from white and buff through yellow and orange to pink and deep red, and its willingness to take fine carving made it the favoured building stone of nineteenth-century Belfast. The boom came with the railways: quarrying expanded from the 1820s to the end of the century, with an incline tramway from the North Quarry down to rail sidings. The stone is not durable, and later Belfast buildings turned to imported Scottish sandstone instead.

History

The sandstone at Scrabo has been quarried since at least Anglo-Norman times. What attracted stonemasons to it was its range of colours — white, buff and pink — and its relative ease of working: it splits readily along the bedding planes, and the heat of the igneous intrusions had hardened parts of the formation. It was found particularly suitable for intricate sculpture and carved detail. One of the earliest surviving uses is the ancient monastery at Greyabbey, whose oldest structures date from the thirteenth century, and William Montgomery wrote about the quarries in his survey of County Down in 1683. The boom period was the nineteenth century, when railway links were built: the Scrabo Hill quarries expanded from the 1820s into the late nineteenth century, the North Quarry served by an incline tramway running down to rail sidings. The stone’s polychromatic mottled effect, produced by the laminations and clay lenses in it, was very much to Victorian taste. George Wilkinson wrote in 1867 that Scrabo sandstone was "properly used mixed, and after a little exposure to weather, the reed of the stone is exposed sufficiently to make one stone different from another", and Edward Hull, in his 1872 treatise on British and Irish building stones, knew "no sandstone in the north of Ireland so well fitted for architectural purpose of an ornamental character". It went into the Albert Memorial and the Presbyterian College in Belfast, Trinity College Library in Dublin and Stormont Castle, and was shipped as far as Dublin and New York. Some thought it the equal of Portland stone. Durable it was not: the saponite clay in it swells when wet, and the expansion decays the stone in a cool damp climate. Later Belfast buildings, the Central Library among them, were built of imported Scottish sandstone instead. Scrabo Tower, built on the hill in 1857–59 as a memorial to the third Marquess of Londonderry, used the local stone for its quoins, window dressings, stairs, corbels, copings and roofs, with the harder dolerite for the walling; after it was finished a quarry foreman moved in as caretaker, and his family ran a tearoom there until the 1960s.

Geology

Triassic sandstone — desert sandstone laid down in dunes — intruded by broad dykes and horizontal sills of dolerite. A sill of black dolerite emplaced sixty million years ago during the eruption of the Antrim lavas caps the sandstone, and it is that cap which protected the stone from weathering and erosion and left it worth quarrying. The heat of the intrusion also altered it: the paler buff and grey varieties near the sill carry soft fibrous needles of talc and actinolite in their pore spaces. Under the microscope the stone is quartz and feldspar cemented weakly by iron cements and calcite, with saponite and kaolinite clays coating the grains — and it is the saponite, which swells when wet, that makes the stone decay outdoors. The faces in the South Quarry preserve dune bedding, ripple marks and mudcracks, with the footprints of reptiles and the trackways of ancient scorpions.

Workings

Open quarries cut into the flanks of Scrabo Hill, of which the North and South Quarries are the principal survivors. The North Quarry had an incline tramway connecting it to rail sidings, built during the nineteenth-century expansion; the stone was shipped from Newtownards as far as Dublin and New York.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The quarries boomed through the nineteenth century and the trade declined as the stone’s poor weathering became apparent and imported Scottish sandstone replaced it in Belfast building.

What remains

The hill is Scrabo Country Park, managed by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, with Scrabo Tower on its summit. Exposed quarry faces survive in the South Quarry, which is protected as an Area of Special Scientific Interest for the contacts it reveals between the sandstone and the cross-cutting dolerite sills, and for the dune bedding, ripple marks, mudcracks, reptile footprints and scorpion trackways preserved in the rock.

The North and South Quarry faces, the line of the North Quarry’s incline tramway, and Scrabo Tower built of the stone above them.

Nearby mines

• Conlig and Whitespots Lead Mines — 2.8 km NE

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.

• The sandstone at Scrabo has been quarried since at least Anglo-Norman times; masons valued its variety of colours — white, buff and pink — and its relative ease of working, splitting along bedding planes, and it was found particularly suitable for intricate sculpture and carved detail. One of the earliest examples of its use is the monastery at Greyabbey, whose oldest structures date from the thirteenth century. ¹
• The sandstone at the Scrabo quarries is so well preserved because a sill of black dolerite emplaced sixty million years ago caps it and has protected it from weathering and erosion; the heat of the intrusion also produced the paler grey varieties, whose pore spaces carry needles of talc and actinolite. ¹
• Under the microscope the stone is quartz and feldspar cemented by weak iron cements and calcite, with saponite and kaolinite clays between and coating the grains; saponite swells when wet, and that expansion contributes to the decay of Scrabo stone in a cool damp climate. ¹
• George Wilkinson wrote in 1867 that Scrabo sandstone was "properly used mixed, and after a little exposure to weather, the reed of the stone is exposed sufficiently to make one stone different from another"; Edward Hull, in his 1872 treatise on British and Irish building stones, knew "no sandstone in the north of Ireland so well fitted for architectural purpose of an ornamental character". ¹
• Exposed quarry faces can still be seen in the South Quarry at Scrabo Tower, where dune bedding, ripple marks and mudcracks are preserved with the footprints of reptiles and the trackways of ancient scorpions; the site is protected for its geology. ^1,2
• Two stones were used in Scrabo Tower, completed in 1859: whitish to pinkish Triassic sandstone, more suitable for fine carving, for the quoins, window dressings, stairs, corbels, copings and roofs, and dark-grey dolerite — harder, more weather-resistant and difficult to work — for the walling. A quarry foreman moved into the tower as caretaker after it was finished. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Scrabo Sandstone — Stone Database NI — Stone Database NI
2. (secondary) Scrabo Tower — Wikipedia

Record created: 7 September 2026 · Last researched: 7 September 2026