Beer Quarry

Visit to Beer Quarry and Caverns 25th March 2026. Author: Pat Snelgrove

At the invitation of Jonathan Pitt of MMR Associates, working on behalf of the owners of the quarry, Clinton Estate, four of the Building Stone Group, (Kelvin Huff, Sheila Alderman, Andy Gordon and myself) visited Beer Quarry in Devon. The aim was to identify suitable stone for ongoing restoration projects at Exeter Cathedral and an exchange of information about Beer Stone. The target area to be explored was not the Roman and medieval caverns at the Visitor Centre across the road to the south, but the large quarry and extensive caverns which are not open to the general public (Photo 1).

1. Google Earth view of Beer Quarry.

2. The lime kilns

Historically Beer Stone has been used in 24 of Britain's 44 cathedrals. It is no longer quarried on a commercial scale. Mining underground ceased in the early 20th century. Hanson Aggregates extracted chalk for lime in the quarry until the late 1990s. The lime kilns are still there (Photo 2). In the mid-20th century mushrooms were grown in the caverns. It was also hoped to store munitions during WW2 but the caverns in general were too damp for large scale use.

The site is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an SSSI. The extensive caverns provide a winter roost for a variety of bat species (greater and lesser horseshoe bats, pipistrelles and the very rare Bechstein’s bat) and their welfare is a priority. However, limited, small-scale extraction is occasionally permitted on such sites, specifically for the restoration of historical buildings such as Exeter Cathedral, provided the operation has no significant environmental impact.

The stone is particularly suitable for intricate carvings. When freshly quarried it is saturated with water and soft, so easy to carve. It is a competent freestone (can be carved in any direction) with few fossils or other inclusions to spoil masonry stone, so can be extracted in large blocks. Its main disadvantage for exterior use is that it is susceptible to weathering. French Calcaire de Migné, a fine-grained, pale cream-to-beige limestone quarried in the Vienne region (near Poitiers) of western France, has been used as a substitute for Beer Stone elsewhere such as Wells Cathedral, but obviously local stone is the preferred option at Exeter.

The main structural walls of Exeter Cathedral are of Salcombe Stone, a sandstone from the Upper Greensand and more weather resistant than Beer Stone. A medieval quarry at Dunscombe Manor was reopened in the 1980s to provide Salcombe Stone for repairs with a permitted quota of 5 cubic metres of stone each year to allow an ongoing programme of repair work. Beer Stone has been used to carve the image screen of the west front of the cathedral. The ceiling ribbing and some sculptures in the interior are also Beer Stone.

In 2014 permission was given to extract Beer Stone in a 6-week window in summer when the bats were not hibernating, but this permission lapsed unused due to the high cost of extracting stone from the caverns, mainly associated with compliance with Health and Safety Regulations. It is hoped to renew the application to extract stone if suitable stone can be identified in the quarry area where the Chalk overburden has already been removed.

Beer Stone is a Chalk limestone stratigraphically situated in a distinct horizon within the Holywell Nodular Chalk laid down in the Cretaceous Period at the base of the White Chalk. The succession of the White Chalk in Devon along the East Devon coast (Beer to Salcombe Mouth) is a condensed, shallow-water sequence resting unconformably upon Upper Greensand. The deposits are nodular chalks, hardgrounds and calcarenites rather than the deep-water white chalk of the Sussex and Kent coasts. They were deposited near the edge of a shallow sea basin, leading to a thinner and more variable succession than the classic thick chalk (Ref. 1). A simple succession is shown in Diagram 1. Above the chalk at Beer Quarry are Eocene clays with flints and Pleistocene debris.

Diagram 1 Simple succession

The Beer Stone is found in a seam running north to south 4-6 metres thick and is limited in extent. It is not seen at the coast although there is an old adit at Hooken Cliff, high above the beach, not now accessible due to landslips.

Lithologically, Beer Stone is generally described as a gritty-textured, bioclastic grainstone-packstone. Ninety eight percent of Chalk is derived from the microscopic calcareous skeletal plates of planktonic algae (coccolithophores), but in the area where Beer Stone was laid down, there was a current flowing across the seafloor which winnowed away the lighter coccoliths, leaving only finely comminuted shell material comprising fragments of bivalves, foraminifera and echinoderms and micrite (calcite mud). The stone has a high porosity of 30.9% and a bulk density of 1.86 kg/m3, making it relatively light and porous compared to stone with similar uses such as Portland Stone (2,150 kg/m³ and 2,300 kg/m³ depending on the bed), which is why Beer Stone has been used for vaulting in the Cathedral.

The stone has been extracted underground since the 1st century CE (Roman era). We were able to explore part of the vast network of caverns not open to the public (Photo 3, Photo 4). We did see the occasional bat asleep upside down. The stone has been removed in metre wide blocks. The technical term is ‘Dimension stone’. Until the 16th century the rock was cut by picks. In the early 18th century, handsaws were introduced. All this was done by the light of tallow candles. Now specialised power tools are used for such work, such as diamond wire saws and chain saws. The caverns ceilings had several areas where flow stone and small stalactites were to be seen (Photo 5, Photo 6).

3. Entrance to the caverns

4. Inside the caverns

5. Stalactites (AG)

6. Flowstone and stalactites (AG)

Above the caves the Chalk is topped with unconsolidated clay with flints dating from the Eocene Epoch (about 56 to 34 million years ago) and later sediments from the Pleistocene age (the last Ice Age approx. 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago). Solution weathering has enlarged cracks and faults in the Beer Stone in places, which were later infilled with the clay to form “clay pipes” (Photo 7).
After visiting the caverns, we then turned our attention to the quarry. (Photo 8). There were examples of Mytiloides (Photo 9) to be seen in some large blocks of Holywell Chalk (Photo 10). Where the quarry has not been backfilled, the nodular chalk has been removed down to a level of uniform competent stone without visible fossils. This appears to be the top of the Beer Stone, the upper surface of which formed a former roadway in the quarry. It was later confirmed that Beer Stone had been extracted from the roadway in the 1960s (Ref 2) and maybe more recently (Photos 11 and 12). There is an embankment to the south which could also provide usable stone but further investigation is needed.

7. A clay filled pipe near the entrance

8. View of the quarry

9. Inoceramid bivalves from the Nodular Chalk (A.G.)

10. nodular chalk with flints

11. The roadway

12. The edge of the roadway showing competent stone

With the relevant permits, it should be possible to excavate usable Beer Stone without disturbance to the wildlife or the SSSI. We all felt that the morning’s investigations was time well spent and thanked Jonathan for inviting us. Thanks to Andy Gordon for supplying some of the photographs.

References:
The main source of background information in this article is from:
1. Gallois Ramues, The stratigraphy of the Chalk Group (Cretaceous) of the Devon coast, UK, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 132 (2021) 573–592.
2. Perkins J.W., Geology Explained in South East Devon, David & Charles (Publishing) (1971) 142-144.

Other published papers relating to the Chalk in the area:
Smith W.E., The Cenomanian Limestone and Contiguous Deposits West of Beer,
Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 72 (1961), 91-134.

Ali M.T., Gamble H.J., Smith W.E), The Orbirhynchia Band in the Beer Stone Quarry, South Devon, with Notes on the Fish Fauna, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (1972) 83, 313-326.

Jarvis I, Woodroff P.B., Stratigraphy of the Cenomanian and basal Turonian (Upper
Cretaceous) between Branscombe and Seaton, SE Devon, England, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (1984) 95 193-215.