Bowers Quarry

Bowers Quarry

Bowers Quarry is an active stone quarry located on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. It is located on the western side of Portland, where it lies west of the villages Weston and Easton. The quarry is operated by Albion Stone and became the site of the first Portland Stone mine. In October 2002 the firm successfully initiated Portland's first ever underground mining operation, which was a precursor to Jordans Mine, which would start in 2008.^[1] It has also been the selected site for the planned Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory.

History

A remaining stone tipping bridge on the western cliff-tops, close to Bowers Quarry.

The quarry has been in operation since the late 1700s, when it would have been made up of various small individual family run quarries.^[2] In 1979 Albion Stone secured the lease for the quarry from the Crown Estate - the firm's first Portland Stone quarry. From this time the quarry gradually extended south towards the Weston Estate.^[3] At the far western cliff-top side of the quarry are many old tramway remains, although during the late 1980s the quarry saw large expansion, and this resulted in many of the old tramway tracks being overwhelmed with an advancing wall of waste stone. At least one old tramway tunnel was blocked off and lost in 1989 by a large amount of stone dumped near the cliff edge.^[4] Like Tout Quarry, Bowers was conveniently placed for much of the waste stone to be tipped over the cliff edge onto the West Weares below. It has also been recorded that remains of a rifle range is located near the cliff-top edge of Bowers Quarry.

Bowers had long become a deep quarry and, as a result of an 8 metre stand-off of untouched ground alongside the boundary and the gentle slope of up to 15 metres of overburden above the Portland Stone beds, a significant quantity of dimension stone was to be potentially wasted alongside the boundary. With the help of mining experts, Wardell Armstrong, a planning application was prepared and passed by the Mineral Planning Authority to extract this stone using a series of small mines through a process known as 'high wall mining'. In 1998 the firm received planning permission for the first Portland Stone trial mine at Bowers Quarry. The following year saw a Royal visit to Albion Stone's quarries. As an experiment, the mining technique was to reduce the environmental impact of the stone industry on Portland. However due to the experimental nature of the quarrying method on Portland, a considerable number of measurements have been taken to measure the strength of the stone and to observe forming cracks, in order to establish whether the method is safe to continue on the island.^[5] The Bowers Mine trials began in 2002, and by 2005 were successfully completed.^[6]

In the spring of 2006 the High Wall extraction in Bowers Quarry commenced, and it was anticipated that up to 6,000 cubic metres of additional stone was to be secured using this method.^[7] The extraction from Bowers Quarry today is completely underground through mining, with the original Bowers Mine in the extreme southern end of the quarry. The High Wall Extraction section is located on the eastern and south-east boundaries. The High Wall Extraction project is made up of a series of small mines that extract otherwise wasted stone that sits between the final faces of the quarry and the actual boundary of the site.

In 2005 Albion Stone revealed a new mining planning permission prepared for the firm's Jordans Quarry, located nearby. The mining started in 2008 and was also a success. The firm's other mining operations have been for environmentally sensitive areas elsewhere on Portland.^[8] Over the last few years Albion Stone has held an annual open day at Jordans Mine to show the public the mining method. The first open day held was at Bowers Quarry in 2003.^[9]

Bowers is largely quarried for Bowers Roach, Whitbed and Basebed. The Shelly Roach stone contains large grey shell fragments, including Turreted Gastropods (Portland Screws) as well as large clams.^[10] The whitbed is a mixture of grey and white stone, including large and small shells as well as shell fragments, while the Basebed stone feature shell fragments randomly distributed across the stone.^[11][12] Today the disused sections of the quarry have remaining reserves of dimension stone offcuts and wastage for use as aggregate.

Over the last few years the West Cliff coast path has had two diversions due to collapses and movement. Approaching Blacknor Point, the coast path remains closed due to the dangerous condition of the cliffs, and the official diversion skirts the southern edge of Bowers Quarry.^[13]

MEMO project

In 2006 the MEMO project was established by the locally trained stone-carver and project director Sebastian Brooke. The project's plans have been put in place to create and maintain a Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory on the western clifftops at Portland - within Bowers Quarry. The spiralling stone monument is to pay homage to the world's extinct species, with images of 860 species assessed as extinct since the disappearance of the dodo inscribed on its sides. The stones of MEMO, quarried from Portland, will embody the images of all species to have gone extinct in modern times, carved by sculptors all over the world. One feature of MEMO will be a geological bell which will be tolled whenever a species goes extinct in the future.^[14] The lease for the site at Bowers Quarry was successfully agreed with the Crown Estate, and architect David Adjaye's design for the observatory was given the go-ahead by Weymouth and Portland Borough Council. As part of the project, almost half of Bowers Quarry is to be restored to limestone grassland. The project has been supported by MEMO trust chairman Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance, former director of Kew Gardens, and principal adviser Tim Smit, co-founder and chief executive of the Eden Project.

The costs of MEMO have been estimated at being £20-£25 million and it is anticipated that this will be raised from a mix of private, public, corporate and charitable funders. The fundraising efforts still continue to date, and once construction commences it is believed to take up to 18 months. Once open, the attraction will generate funds by charging an entry fee of up to £9 and it is expected to attraction 140,000 annual visitors within three years of launch.^[15][16]

Since 2012 the first sculptures of extinct animals destined for the MEMO Project have been located in a disused section of the quarry. In August 2014 the sculptures were damaged by vandals, however Sebastian Brooke said it would not hold the project back.^[17]

Harmonic Fields

In August-September 2012 Pierre Sauvegeot's Harmonic Fields, an ensemble of more than 500 instruments played by the wind, was set up near the cliff-edge within a disused section of Bowers Quarry. Harnessing the natural energy of the wind, the orchestra of instruments created a symphonic soundscape that was unique to each visitor. Harmonic Fields was part of the London 2012 Festival, a 12-week nationwide celebration bringing together artists from across the world with those in the UK. It was also part of the Inside Out Dorset Festival and core funded by Arts Council England and Dorset County Council. The Guardian described it as "not only a striking piece of land art, but a carefully constructed piece of music."^[18]

Sauvegeot, the creator of the project, revealed "We're constantly bombarded with new noises, which amplify, until we no longer listen. Sounds from Harmonic Fields are quiet and come at their own pace, like waves on the seashore. It is music in its simplest, most primal form. The Dorset coast is a wonderful place to bring Harmonic Fields - it's rolling hills and wide seascape the perfect place for the audience to immerse themselves in the sounds of the instruments and the wind."^[19][20]

References

Coordinates: 50°32′46″N 2°26′54″W / 50.5462°N 2.4482°W / 50.5462; -2.4482