Quarry Yard

Cut straight down into grey limestone, the worked-out quarry is a bowl of terraced benches, each ledge squared off by saws long since gone quiet. Its floor is flat and pale, crushed stone raked level and scarred with fresh impact marks. A chain-link fence runs along the rim, sagging between concrete posts. In one corner a rusted crane leans over the drop with its jib locked at an angle, a hook swinging on a short cable in the wind. Beside the gate stands a stone-cutters' hut with a tin roof, a stovepipe and a single window. Above the far wall the headframes of the town show black against the slope. Daylight is bright and flat here, thrown back off every cut face, and rain stands in the drill holes. Late in the afternoon the shadow of the western rim slides across the floor like a closing door, and the stone turns from white to blue-grey within minutes.