Meldon Quarry

• Near: Okehampton, about 2 miles south-west
• Stone: granite and hornfels, for railway ballast
• Opened: 1874; greatly enlarged 1897 and 1902
• Output: 340,000 tons a year by 1953
• Mothballed: August 2011
• Access: private

Meldon Quarry lies beside the main line from Exeter to Plymouth, about 700 metres east-north-east of Meldon Viaduct. A small quarry opened in 1874 with the Okehampton to Lydford extension and was greatly expanded in 1897 and extended in 1902, supplying ballast to the London and South Western Railway and later British Rail. Output reached 340,000 tons a year by 1953. It was sold to ECC Quarries in 1994, and Bardon Aggregates stopped production and mothballed it in August 2011.

The quarry sits where the Dartmoor granite meets the Culm Measures, in a metamorphic aureole with rare minerals. It is not the Meldon Aplite Quarry, a separate disused SSSI nearby. The ground is private, but the Granite Way cycle route and the Dartmoor Railway run alongside the entrance.

Sources: Wikipedia, Meldon Quarry; Tavistock Today, A chapter of history closes; Wikipedia, Meldon, Devon; OpenStreetMap; IASDA newsletter issue 10 p. 14.