I went wild camping in July for a night, up in Gallow Hills, north of Dundee. before settling down and pitching up my tent on the hill for the night, I had planned a little exploration near Newtyle, an old disused slate quarry. It's referred to as Burnside, other than that I found very little information about it online. The closest thing I found to anything indicating a date was the existence of a report documenting a company called "THE BURNSIDE QUARRY COMPANY LIMITED", created in September 1934.
Records online show it was taken over by the Aberdeenshire council in 1992. The council had plans to use the quarry as a landfill, but that project might've been abandoned as I saw nothing indicating a landfill on site.
I found a listing online of an archive of a post marking the land up for sale, no date though. I believe a farmer bought the whole thing, as some barns on site were being used for storage for some agricultural equipment.
The quarry itself. The once exposed slate rock has been covered with vegetation, indicating it's been disused for a while now.
The most interesting part of the exploration was this building, right at the entrance of the quarry. I believe it was used as a reception, but I'm not sure. As you'll see the inside was quite unusual, not my idea of what a reception on an industrial site should look like. It was in a terrible state of decay but had lots of interesting objects inside.
Piles of old books on the ground, some had really nice covers
An inviting armchair in the corner of one of the rooms, with an old dusty mirror above it. A book lays on the table, the title reads "The Friendhsip Book".
There were three rooms in total. This one with the armchair and books on the floor as pictured above, which also included two toilets, for "ladies" and "gents" as marked by the signs on the door. Another small room by the entrance, it had a cupboard which contained some paperwork and binders, I assume most of them had been looted as it was pretty empty. The last room was the most cluttered, also the most interesting.
The ceiling had collapsed in parts. It had a bench running around the walls of the entire room which made me think it might've been some kind of a changing room ? Maybe a meeting room ? No idea. I suspect someone dumped some old furniture and rubbish in the building, as the room had a fridge and several cupboards placed in random areas that didn't seem to fit the original floor plan for this building.
Some objects in the room I found worthy of a photo :
An old skincare product :
There were many more old makeup products all around the room.
The ground was covered in old damp clothes, bead necklaces and jewellery.
A sink, with some plates and cutlery :
The rest of the buildings on site were used as storage by a farmer, just some regular old barns.
Some exposed slate, what the quarry was digging out :
Overall this was a really nice exploration, pretty small building but I didn't come expecting anything huge, or anything at all. The rest of my trip went pretty well, Gallow hill is a great camping spot for anyone looking to visit the area. Beautiful view from the top.
This is my first report, hope it was okay. Constructive criticism is very welcome.
Records online show it was taken over by the Aberdeenshire council in 1992. The council had plans to use the quarry as a landfill, but that project might've been abandoned as I saw nothing indicating a landfill on site.
I found a listing online of an archive of a post marking the land up for sale, no date though. I believe a farmer bought the whole thing, as some barns on site were being used for storage for some agricultural equipment.
The quarry itself. The once exposed slate rock has been covered with vegetation, indicating it's been disused for a while now.
The most interesting part of the exploration was this building, right at the entrance of the quarry. I believe it was used as a reception, but I'm not sure. As you'll see the inside was quite unusual, not my idea of what a reception on an industrial site should look like. It was in a terrible state of decay but had lots of interesting objects inside.
Piles of old books on the ground, some had really nice covers
An inviting armchair in the corner of one of the rooms, with an old dusty mirror above it. A book lays on the table, the title reads "The Friendhsip Book".
There were three rooms in total. This one with the armchair and books on the floor as pictured above, which also included two toilets, for "ladies" and "gents" as marked by the signs on the door. Another small room by the entrance, it had a cupboard which contained some paperwork and binders, I assume most of them had been looted as it was pretty empty. The last room was the most cluttered, also the most interesting.
The ceiling had collapsed in parts. It had a bench running around the walls of the entire room which made me think it might've been some kind of a changing room ? Maybe a meeting room ? No idea. I suspect someone dumped some old furniture and rubbish in the building, as the room had a fridge and several cupboards placed in random areas that didn't seem to fit the original floor plan for this building.
Some objects in the room I found worthy of a photo :
An old skincare product :
There were many more old makeup products all around the room.
The ground was covered in old damp clothes, bead necklaces and jewellery.
A sink, with some plates and cutlery :
The rest of the buildings on site were used as storage by a farmer, just some regular old barns.
Some exposed slate, what the quarry was digging out :
Overall this was a really nice exploration, pretty small building but I didn't come expecting anything huge, or anything at all. The rest of my trip went pretty well, Gallow hill is a great camping spot for anyone looking to visit the area. Beautiful view from the top.
This is my first report, hope it was okay. Constructive criticism is very welcome.
