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I am currently reading "Quarry Faces - the story of Mendip Stone" which got me wondering about the source of S & D ballast. I presume (probably incorrectly) that the Southern end of the line used Meldon Ballast but was it also used on the northern parts of the line. There were several rail connected quarries on the line did any of these supply ballast and what of the source when BR(w) took it over.  

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Think I can answer this one for you.  I used to look for fossils in the ballast close to Bailey Gate as geology/paleontology was, and still is, an interest of mine. . Found plenty of Carboniferous Limestone fossils in the ballast. So to answer your query I think the Carb Lmstne came from the Mendip quarries as did some Basalt/Andesite (also found in the Mendips). The colour of the ballast was a mixture of bluey/grey (Carb Limestone) and brown (Basalt/Andesite) and getting the colour mixture correct in model form is important to me. Quarries at Ham Wood and Emborough and Winsor Hill could be accessed by the railway. Emborough and Winsor Hill are now disused but are important sites for fossils and both are an SSSI as a result,

Some links for you below.

 

Wainwright Quarries are still active and quarry Basalt/Andesite

https://www.wainwright.co.uk/

 

A British Geological Society link to the east Mendip quazrries.

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mendips/more_info/east_mendip_quarries_history.htm

 

Some info from wikipaedia too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarries_of_the_Mendip_Hills

Edited by geoffers
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Taken from a RMWeb post from 2012.

 

 

" If Meldon was well-developed by 1900, the chances are the SDJR ballast would have come from there? If not, it would have been from local sources, including the Mendip mountain limestone, the Dorset stone and crushed gravels from coastal areas."

"Ballast northwards out of Bailey Gate.....seemed to be from a Carboniferous Limetsone assemblage (brachiopods, corals). The
colour of the ballast was mainly a blue/grey which was the limestone with the fossils, but there was also a brown ballast littered amongst this which looked volcanic."

"The brown (basalt) ballast did and still does come from Moons Hill Quarry just above Stoke St Michael in the Mendips. John Wainwright is the quarry owner. If you want samples to replicate the basalt colours a polite request in the post to John Wainwrights would be a good bet. Their website is very interesting [http://www.wainwright.co.uk/]"

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