At first glance, there's nothing particularly special about Edinburgh's Craigleith Retail Park. Looking at the general layout, architecture and range of shops, it could be just about any out-of-town shopping centre in Britain.
But scratch just under the surface (quite literally) and it's a very different story - the entire retail park sits directly above what was once one of the most historically important quarries in all of Scotland.
Next time you're popping into Sainsbury's, Superdrug or Pets at Home, take a moment to consider that the majority of Edinburgh's Georgian New Town originated from the ground directly beneath your feet.
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Over a period of three centuries, Craigleith Quarry developed a reputation for possessing some of the finest and most durable sandstone to be found anywhere in the UK, if not the world.
The New Town was the largest building project in Europe at the end of the 18th Century and it was being constructed street by street using Craigleith stone.
Key city buildings such as Register House, City Chambers, Parliament Square used the stone, while the enormous pillars at the entrance to Edinburgh University's Old College Building on South Bridge, each weighing nine tonnes, are solid lumps of Craigleith stone.
The stone was used extensively in Edinburgh and was used in London as well as exported around the world. The health cost was great to the quarrymen and masons who suffered greatly from the fine dust created when extracting and cutting the stone.
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In our main picture, which has been sourced from the Capital Collections archive via the Lost Edinburgh Facebook page, we can see an aerial view of the quarry as it was towards the end of its working life around 1935.
Work at the famous quarry came to an abrupt halt at the outbreak of the Second World War, with Craigleith gradually being filled in after becoming a refuse dump - a rather sorry end for such a prominent and historically important site.
In 1993 the disused quarry was given a new lease of life as Craigleith Retail Park. The huge 110-metre-deep cavity was completely filled in in the process.
Interestingly, the sandstone entrance sign for the retail park had to be sourced from Stainton Quarry more than 120 miles away at Barnard Castle (of Dominic Cummings fame) in Durham.
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