Downton Wood Abandoned Quarries
IndustrialInert
Downton Wood Abandoned Quarries is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Dartmouth, Devon. It received industrial and inert waste between 1985 and 1991, covering about 1.93 hectares. Reference EAHLD08782, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD08782 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Downton Wood Abandoned Quarries |
| Address | Lapthorne Cross, Dittisham, Dartmouth, Devon |
| Site operator | Not recorded |
| Licence holder | J Britton |
| Licence issued | 17 April 1985 |
| Licence surrendered | Not recorded |
| First waste input | 1 December 1985 |
| Last waste input | 1 January 1991 |
| Area | 1.93 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Devon SW |
| Grid reference | 285100, 53900 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Downton Wood LandfillWaste types not recorded
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.