Landfill Check

Holme House Quarry

Liquid / sludgeIndustrialCommercialInert

Holme House Quarry is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Shildon, County Durham. It received liquid/sludge, industrial, commercial and inert waste between 1979 and 1993, covering about 20.71 hectares. Reference EAHLD05817, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD05817
Site nameHolme House Quarry
AddressPiercebridge, Darlington
Site operatorSteetley Construction Materials Limited
Licence holderSteetley Construction Material Limited
Licence issued28 November 1979
Licence surrendered18 March 1993
First waste input31 December 1979
Last waste input31 December 1993
Area20.71 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaDales NE
Grid reference422000, 515200

Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.

Boundary map

What these waste types mean

Liquid / sludge:
liquid wastes and sludges, such as sewage sludge or industrial effluent. Can be mobile in groundwater, so worth understanding.
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.
Inert:
builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.

Other historic landfill sites nearby

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.