DoLime Quarry

  • Year Built: 1860
  • Year Closed: 2003
  • Year Demo: 2005

Over 100 years old, this quarry began operations in the 1860s.

The site has been home to a number of companies, including Canadian Gypsum, LaFarge Construction and most recently Guelph DoLime.

It's a fairly bleak landscape. Flat plains, steep cliffs and a lake fill in the 150 acre site. The only vegetation to be found remains at the outskirts of the operation. Industrial equipment and a small number of buildings sit clustered on the northern edge of the property.

This visit didn't allow for time to properly photograph the buildings on site. Unfortunately, they were demolished a few months later.

The site reopened in 2006 as an aggregate quarry. Increasingly, the city has grown outwards with sprawl surrounding the quarry site. Since that time, there have been disputes between the quarry and the city of Guelph. These focus primarily on concerns about how proposed future quarry operations may affect regional groundwater resources. Presently (2010), discussions have entered bureaucratic stalemate: inquiries, panels and investigations.