Windsor Hill Quarry is a 0.8 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

 geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Shepton Mallet

Shepton Mallet

Shepton Mallet is a small rural town and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset in South West England. Situated approximately south of Bristol and east of Wells, the town is estimated to have a population of 9,700. It contains the administrative headquarters of Mendip District Council...

 on the Mendip Hills

Mendip Hills

The Mendip Hills is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running east to west between Weston-super-Mare and Frome, the hills overlook the Somerset Levels to the south and the Avon Valley to the north...

 in Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, adjacent to the Windsor Hill Marsh

Windsor Hill Marsh

Windsor Hill Marsh is a 0.84 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, north of the town of Shepton Mallet in Somerset, and adjacent to the Windsor Hill Quarry geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It was notified in January 1972....

 biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It was notified in 1971.

It is a Geological Conservation Review

Geological Conservation Review

The Geological Conservation Review is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological and geomorphological features of Britain...

 site for vertebrate studies in which examples of the tritylodont Oligokyphus

Oligokyphus

Oligokyphus was an advanced herbivorous cynodont of the late Triassic to early Jurassic periods. Originally considered to be an early mammal, it is now classified as a synapsid because Oligokyphus does not have the mammalian jaw attachments and it retains a vestigial joint between the quadrate...

 were identified.

The disused quarry was connected to the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway

Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway

The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway – almost always referred to as "the S&D" – was an English railway line connecting Bath in north east Somerset and Bournemouth now in south east Dorset but then in Hampshire...

until 1957 when the sidings were removed.

External links

• English Nature website (SSSI information)