High Moor Quarry
IndustrialCommercial
High Moor Quarry is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Lees. It received industrial and commercial waste between 1961 and 1971, covering about 5.97 hectares. Reference EAHLD15992, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD15992 |
|---|---|
| Site name | High Moor Quarry |
| Address | Whitegates Lane, Delph, Oldham, Greater Manchester |
| Site operator | Saddleworth Urban District Council |
| Licence holder | Not recorded |
| Licence issued | Not recorded |
| Licence surrendered | Not recorded |
| First waste input | 1 June 1961 |
| Last waste input | 30 November 1971 |
| Area | 5.97 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Not recorded |
| EA area | South NW |
| Grid reference | 397100, 406800 |
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.
- Commercial:
- waste from shops and offices — paper, packaging, food. Similar profile to household waste, usually less of it.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Highmoor Scouthead Tip 2Liquid / sludgeIndustrialCommercialInert
- Disused quarry off Whitegates LaneInert
- Quarry off Oldham RoadInert
- Land adjacent to Hill Top LaneWaste types not recorded
- Knarr Mill No.2Inert
- Land at Knarr MillInert
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.