Keeping the dead dry.

Part of the slated roof of the 17th Century Udny Mausoleum in the Holyrood cemetery in Newburgh.


The roof is slated with Scotch slates which are relatively small and thick compared, for example, to Welsh slates.  They were produced in a variety of lengths and widths, and always laid with the largest slates at the base of the roof, with the smaller ones at the top. This method was introduced for purely economic reasons in that it made best use of all the material available. Each roof slope bears a fingerprint of the quarry that supplied the material, with the pattern of diminishing courses, and the colour and textures all being highly distinctive.


Throughout the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries over 200 quarries produced a wide variety of types and colours, from four main areas: The West Coast quarries of Ballachulish and the ‘Slate Islands’ of Easdale, Seil, Luing and Belnahua; the ‘Slate Belt’ including Luss, Aberfoyle and Dunkeld; and the slate outcrops of Banff/MacDuff and of the Southern Uplands. The slates on the mausoleum from the Banf/MacDuff  slate-beds.