I did manage to rescue front and rear Bucc ejection seats from Williamson’s for £35 the pair!

Other aircraft scrapyards around Moray were:
Another of Williamson’s yard in the early 1970s just to the north of the old Elgin cinema (now Joanna’s nightclub), which contained large bits of a naval Buccaneer, and a Hunter T8.
In Forres in the early 1980s, there was a yard adjacent to the Mosset Tavern, later to became the site of Forres’ first Tescos. In it were large pieces of very dark blue RAF Neptunes (probably ex-Kinloss), and B-29 (presumed RAF Washington) engine silver cowls…

I’m glad I found this forum, having stumbled on it while browsing for information on various scrapped aircraft locations around Elgin, Scotland.
There seems to be some misapprehension about the actual location of Quarrywood, as mentioned in this forum previously. Williamson’s wonderful scrap yard, where I would spend many happy hours as a kid in the 1960s, is actually called Brumley Brae, and sits across a small valley from Quarrywood.
I make the distinction because Quarrywood itself also contains parts of scrapped aircraft, the sparse residue of literally thousands of wartime aircraft broken up by the RAF MU’s at Kinloss, Lossiemouth, and Brackla, immediately after 1945. Williamson’s scrap merchants also received a lot of the aircraft, and are known to have put 240 Spitfires and Seafires through the crusher!
An acquaintance of mine, now deceased, told me of an area in Quarrywood where he used to play amongst WW2 aircraft wreckage as a boy in the late 1940s. He described how he and his friends used to climb down a hole in the ground (Quarrywood is full of them!), which was filled with Frazer-Nash turrets. Apparently Moray Council later filled the hole in, just in case someone killed themselves.
What I did find 20 years ago, when I went to the spot he described, was an open sandstone quarry, peppered with sundry pieces of aircraft brake shoes, steel web ‘bags’ to catch bomber’s spent cartridge cases, smashed aircraft batteries, smashed Lancaster cockpit instrument panels, clear plastic Lancaster instruction panels, and various steel fuselage tubing. Moray Council have since filled that quarry too!
Williamson’s yard, opposite Quarrywood, was a delight for a young lad in the late 1960s and early 70s. On entering the front gate (usually on a Sunday!), a beautiful intact gloss black Sea Hawk used to sit on its wheels, wings folded, on the left. On the right, a huge quarry hole was filled with post-war jet cockpit sections, mainly Sea Hornets and Vampires, complete with instrumentation, bakelite seats, gunsights, and spade-type control columns. As kids we used to strap ourselves in, upside down, to hacksaw the most difficult columns out, which we sold as ‘Spitfire’ relics at school!
Other aircraft types there included Sea Fury cockpit sections and engines (still there in the 1980s!), and large sections of Sea Balliol, Buccaneer, Sea Venom, Firefly, Gannet, Vulcan intakes, and a Wessex tail.
Enough talking – here are some photos I’ve taken of Williamson’s scrapyards over the years…
Merlin engine at Williamson’s main yard (then adjacent to Elgin Railway Station) circa 1984.

Buccaneer S1 XN922 at the Brumley Brae yard, (circa 1982?). This aircraft crashed at Farnborough in 1962, killing the navigator and someone on the ground.

Shackleton AEW2 at Brumley Brae (circa 1982?)

Shackleton AEW2 Griffons outside Williamson’s main yard, circa early 1990s

Burying aircraft still goes on, but perhaps for different reasons…
(buried MiG25 found by the US in iraq)

Thanks for the local area photos Alan and welcome to the forum, I recall a great lift on the back of your Harley to see the Loch Ness Wellington at Lochend.
Still got one like it Gary!
Did you ever see the wreck bits behind the Northside hangars at Kinloss? I recall visiting the area and noting part numbers which turned out to be Whitley. It is possible the parts are buried because on later visits to the flying club the area was landscaped.These Whitley parts likely came from a recovery by KAS in the seventies.
In the dunes by the bomb dump were Anson bits and nose frames from Lincolns.
http://www.scotaviaimages.co.uk

I remember you took me out in the ATC Landrover to inspect the bomb dump Lincoln nose sections & glazing, and the tubular steel Anson frames lying around. One used to languish near the woods where the engine testing bay is now.

Do you have the website address pls?

Sure Andy – it’s at http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/

You can see one from the Forres-Burghead road, on a pan to the east of the ATC tower, with various large pieces missing…

I’ve had this Griffon conrod and piston clock for around 30 years, and is one of the few items I’d grab if there was a house fire.
It was presented to me by a friend on 8 Squadron, after one of their AEW Shackletons had thrown a rod, which smashed the engine casing, and sent metal particles through the oil system. The gudgeon pin bronze bearing still shows signs of those particles…

I used to play in that one along with the Mk3 in the late 70’s. Many a fine summer spent in the cockpits of those.

Me too – except they were largely complete in the early 70s, with instruments, seats, etc, although I ‘doo’ remember pidgeons nesting in the holed leading edges. As a kid, the fun always stopped when the RAF Police Land Rover made an appearance! I seem to remember a Canberra at the fire dump around the same time.

These are from the Brumley Brae yard in the early to mid 1970s, owned by Williamsons of Elgin. The site was on the opposite side of the valley to Quarrywood.
Ex-Lossie FAW22 Sea Venoms WW199 and WW151 visible

Ex Lossie Gannet AEW3 – unknown serial

And an unknown mid-fuselage secion (Meteor maybe?)

Here’s at least one of many parts of Lancasters buried in old quarries at Quarrywood, Elgin. This painted-over fuselage glazing was lying on the surface, a remnant of 45 MU breaking up warbirds at RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth immediately after the war…


Lots of intact rare parts too, like the little brown Air Ministry Bakelite ‘torpedoes’ often found on aerial wires, brake shoes, steel net ammo pouches, etc.
I’ve also seen large Lincoln nose sections, with that unique glazing, half buried in soil mounds at the northside bomb dump at RAF Kinloss around 1983, amongst some Anson fuselage skeletons. The location was used by 45 MU to destroy WW2 aircraft, but I suspect the whole area has been sanitised now though…