Millstone quarry, Quitrent Mountain, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Mining
Scattered across the eastern slopes of Quitrent Mountain, on the border between Cork and Limerick, are the overgrown remains of a quarry that never quite finished its work.
Circular depressions, ranging from three to fourteen metres across and up to three metres deep, pock the hillside like shallow bowls slowly being reclaimed by vegetation. In several of them, partially-worked millstones still lie where they were abandoned, and further down the slope others were dragged some distance before being left behind entirely, as though whoever was moving them simply gave up mid-journey.
The mountain's bedrock of conglomerate, a rock formed from compressed pebbles and fragments bound together in a matrix, proved useful for millstone production. Conglomerate has the rough, abrasive texture that grinding grain requires, and the quarrymen here exploited it systematically, working both deep depressions and shallow surface outcrops. The millstones they produced vary considerably in size, with diameters running from roughly 0.91 metres to 1.45 metres and thicknesses between 0.20 and 0.38 metres. Many have a central perforation bored from both sides, the standard method for creating the hole through which a spindle would pass to drive a runner stone, the upper revolving disc in a mill. Others show only unfinished bore holes, the work stopped at some point before completion. The hill faces east towards a neighbouring height called Quern Hill, which suggests this entire area had a long association with stone-working for grain-processing. A runner quern and a saddle quern, two different styles of hand-grinding stone that predate or accompanied watermill technology, were recorded in a farmhouse nearby, hinting at the continuation of that tradition at a domestic scale.
The site is not signposted or managed as a visitor attraction, and the quarried hollows are overgrown enough that careful footing is advisable. The millstones remaining in and around the depressions are the main thing to look for, particularly those with their bored holes clearly visible, which give a tangible sense of how far along the manufacturing process some pieces had travelled before work ceased.