What is quarry and spoil heap?

What quarry and spoil heap is

Quarries range from small pits dug for a single building, bank or road to large industrial workings, and many earthworks have lines of quarry pits beside them where their material was dug. Some quarries are scheduled for their historic importance, such as the Pen Pits on the border of Somerset and Wiltshire, where querns (hand mills for grinding grain) were quarried. Spoil heaps range from small conical tips to large flat-topped dumps, and in mining areas they may form extensive complexes linked by tramways. Disused quarries can also contain the remains of kilns, tramways, buildings and working faces that show how they were worked.

How quarry and spoil heap looks on LiDAR

A quarry shows as a hollow with steep, often irregular faces on one or more sides and a level or uneven floor, usually with spoil heaps nearby and tracks leading away. Sky-view factor and negative openness show quarry hollows and pits clearly, and hillshade shows the steep working faces. A local relief model shows low spoil heaps and the small pits of older workings, and lines of small pits beside a road, bank or ditch often mark where material was dug to build it.

See LiDAR visualisations explained for what each method shows.

What can look like one

Natural scarps, landslips, sinkholes and erosion hollows can look like quarries, small quarry pits can be mistaken for bomb craters, bell pits or fishponds, and spoil heaps can look like barrows or mottes. Old Ordnance Survey maps, which often mark quarries and pits, help to tell them apart.

Protection

Most old quarries and spoil heaps are not designated, but a few of historic importance, such as the quern quarries at Pen Pits, are scheduled monuments.

Examples on the LiDAR

Where they are

Counties with the most quarry and spoil heap that have a page here.

More examples