Yeolands Quarry

Yeolands Quarry

Yeolands Quarry was an active stone quarry located on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. It is located on the eastern side of Portland, where it lies east of the village Easton and south of The Grove village. The quarry is one of the largest on Portland, at 120 feet deep, 300 feet wide. It is now abandoned for extracting stone, though the adjacent Broadcroft Quarry to the west, which links to Yeolands, is still in some use, as well as being a butterfly reserve.

Yeolands Quarry has been the planned setting for the visitor attraction Jurassica - which is to be based on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, and as a subterranean geological park, will largely present the prehistoric world.

Background

The quarry was in full use by Portland Stone Firms Ltd before becoming redundant in the 21st century.^[1] By the late 1980s the central bottom region of the quarry had an established ecosystem where small ponds were fed by rivulets. This environment hosted many types of reeds, grasses and even newts. However from the 21st century the quarry was used for dumping overburden, and as such changed considerably, with the ecosystem buried deep under rubble.^[2] Portland Stone Limited, another firm, operate out of four quarries on the island to extract stone to supply crushed materials. The stone is blasted, extracted, then crushed, screened, tested and loaded for transport. Aside from Yeolands, Broadcroft, Perryfield and Coombefield Quarries are also used for this purpose.^[3]

The north-eastern face of the quarry has a clean, albeit partly overgrown, sequence of Portland Stone, both Cherty Series and Freestone. The Purbeck succession at the top continues to the level of just above the Hard Slatt but is somewhat degraded at the present. The debris in the quarry is mostly from the Purbeck Group.^[4] On the outskirts of the quarry are rough paths and tracks on the seaward side, which is popular for walking.^[5]

In April 1999 a man fell 60 feet from the cliff top into the quarry. He remained at the site for ten hours before he was found suffering from hypothermia. The man survived and recovered in hospital.^[6]

In late 2013 plans were revealed for the £85–90 million project Jurassica, which is planned to be set within Yeolands Quarry. The idea of Jurassica first stemmed from science journalist Michael Hanlon, who grew up in Dorset and searched for fossils along the coast. Inspired by the Eden Project the attraction plans are to showcase hundreds of world-class paleontological remains. An aquarium is also planned to be a part of the attraction. Other schemes involve taking visitors back in time, 140 million years ago, on a journey "flying around the Earth". The park has been described as about a third of the size of the Millennium Dome, and will be covered with a translucent, domed glass and steel roof spanning 350 ft, which has been described as a "unique, lightweight translucent roof, much like a spider web, that will be almost invisible from outside". The site is also planned to be the world's first carbon-negative large visitor attraction, using solar panels to generate its own power.^[7]

The project has received both local and national support. Naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron, as well as trustee Sir Tim Smit, the creator of the Eden Project. The construction time of the project is estimated to be three to five years and if funding can be secured, the project's trustees are currently aiming to open the attraction in 2019–20. The plans are to attract 700,000 visitors a year.^[8]

References

Coordinates: 50°32′46″N 2°25′26″W / 50.5462°N 2.4239°W / 50.5462; -2.4239