Erratic Rocks - A Series

[+martlakes]

I've recently started a small series of caches around my local area (Cumbria) which are located at or near stones that have names on the OS maps. I've done a bookmark list, which also includes some other folk's caches that fit the series.

 

We have quite a few glacial erratics dropped by the ice sheets retreating. As well as the geology interest, I think it's fascinating that people have named boulders and that the names have survived. Some have legends or history attached.

 

See GCX3DX for my current list. If anyone knows of any named boulders near you and would like to add them to the list, and/or do a cache nearby, that would extend the range. Bit like the Motorway Mayhem series?

 

(If there turns out to be hundreds, perhaps someone with the necessary skills could do a web page for the list?)

 

Any thoughts? (Apart from "what shameless cache promotion"! )

[+Jonovich]

I can suggest: -

 

The Devil's Cast

by Rooster#1 [profile]

GCM0AW

 

That is near to the rather impressive Hemlock Stone in Nottinghamshire

 

Jon

[+yob kulcha]

Hawk's Neb (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCM8JW

It's called "Hawk's Nib" on the OS map...

 

...and while you're there you might as well get

Rockfall (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCM8K0

which isn't named on the OS map but is an interesting feature nonetheless...

 

...and since you've come this far you might as well pay a visit to the sublime

Terracotta Warriors (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCN1K8

which is nothing to do with the topic but hey, you're on Bute, what else are you going to do?

[+The Flying Boots]

This is one of ours GCVDEC. We've called it the Druids Stone as it is said to have been used in Druid ceremonies.

[+The Flying Boots]

And then theres GCVJCK Which is close to "Harolds Stones"

[markandlynn]

Im sure there is one on Cannock chase (i know theres a boulder and a nearby cache) just cant rememebr it at the moment

[+Dorsetgal & GeoDog]

You might wish to add GCH5QY, it's in the vicinity of The Agglestone, Studland.

[+martlakes]

Hawk's Neb (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCM8JW

It's called "Hawk's Nib" on the OS map...

 

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I've been wanting to get to Bute again, but armed with a GPS!

You've raised the first conundrum though - does it have to be an actual boulder or will an outcrop/rock feature be ok? I guess there must be a lot of named rock features around.

 

I think I'd be inclined to keep it to actual 'stand alone' boulders otherwise where would one draw the line of what to include or not. Would that include or exclude the Devil's Cast near Nottingham though? Should it since it looks like a very separate feature?

 

Oo'er! Decisions, decisions!

[+Alibags]

There's The Blue Stone in the NE. Have not got cache linky to hand just now

[+Guanajuato]

How about the Norber Erratics, not far east of us. GCJ6BJ

[+The Golem]

Hawk's Neb (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCM8JW

It's called "Hawk's Nib" on the OS map...

 

...and while you're there you might as well get

Rockfall (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCM8K0

which isn't named on the OS map but is an interesting feature nonetheless...

 

...and since you've come this far you might as well pay a visit to the sublime

Terracotta Warriors (Bute)

by Billy Twigger

GCN1K8

which is nothing to do with the topic but hey, you're on Bute, what else are you going to do?

 

None of these are erratics - we visited them last week! Good caches though...

[+Jango & Boba Fett]

Rolling Stone in Norfolk is an erratic. The actual "standing stone" is a medium sized boulder of grey arenaceous sandstone whose nearest source area is the English Midlands. I can't promise that it was brought all the way from Birmingham by a glacier but it has certainly been reworked up from the underlying Tertiary gravels which were themselves laid down by a pre Anglian Glacial eastward flowing river system which had now been captured by the Trent.

 

There are several of these "standing stones" or "foundation stones" in East Anglia mostly associated with tales that they are "granite" boulders brought from Denmark/Friesland by Anglian warlords who founded the particular settlement. In all the cases I have seen they are grey arenaceous (mixed felspar & quartz)sandstones similar to the Triassic Sherwood Sandstones, so obviously the fouders of East Anglia took a detour via Ikea in Wednesbury.

[+HazelS]

Here in Cheshire we have some wonderful sandstone,and Frog's Gob cache fits the bill nicely!!

[+martlakes]

How about the Norber Erratics, not far east of us. GCJ6BJ

 

Ha! This is on my to do list, so don't know why I'd forgotten it! Thanks for the reminder, I'll add it to the list.

[+davy boy]

This is a nice one on Dartmoor,Ten commandments stone cache..

There are also many more stones on the moor with names and legends.

[+martlakes]

Here in Cheshire we have some wonderful sandstone,and Frog's Gob cache fits the bill nicely!!

 

Hi Hazel

 

I've checked the maps (online) and can't see the name anywhere. Plus is it a rock feature or an unattached 'boulder'. I think the list is going to be only those that have a name on the map and are actual individual stones. Let me know if you think Froggy is ok.

 

Thanks for the other suggestions from folk. I've been adding them to the bookmark list. Not sure about Harold's Stones. Should they go in? I think I'd exclude stone circles as such, but I can't tell from the photo if this is just a couple of boulders. What do you think?

 

Any more suggestions? Any stones you know that don't have a cache but are named?

[+martlakes]

This is a nice one on Dartmoor,Ten commandments stone cache..

There are also many more stones on the moor with names and legends.

 

Thanks for that one. I should think Dartmoor could have a list of its own! I'm happy to keep adding them if anyone wants to mention them. If there's loads and loads, perhaps leave some until they get a cache, or just lump them into one area. For eg, there are several Thunderstones up here around Shap - don't think they all need a cache.

 

It's a very relaxed and informal bookmark list, and it can grow over time and with interest - doesn't have to be definitive.

[+minstrelcat]

There is the White Horse Stone near Maidstone - it doesn't have a cache specifically relating to it but there are several close by.

 

GCPNNK is probably the closest.

 

Streetmap link

 

EDIT: just re-read the OP and I don't think this counts as it was originally part of a neolithic tomb. How about a bookmark list of these?

 

Lisa

Edited July 12, 2006 by minstrelcat

[+gingerbreadmen]

Could I claim Sharon Stone if anybody locates it/her for me?

[+The Hancock Clan]

You can do a search here for erratic rocks etc. (it'll take a while for the page to open though)

[Dave from Glanton]

There are TheDrake Stone GCM561 and Little Church Rock GCBBDF in Northumberland.

 

I assume that GCHPYW is the one which Alibags is thinking of.

[+fellsmanhiker]

What about the Sampson stones in upper Eskdale Cumbria, there are about a dozen of them,and a few of them must be at least the size of the Bowder stone in Borrowdale, the stones have not suffered the indignity of having rock steps cut into any of them.They are are situated below Cam Spout Crag on Sca Fell,.where incidentally there is my Sca Fell multi cache,which en route for part 2 you would walk right past them.

Also there is Badger Rock also known as The Brock Stone in Kentmere,and all though there is not a public footpath leading directly to the stone there is a permitted path that is only a slight diversion from the Garburn Pass,the Badger Rock also has many rock climbs.

Just thought of another one,namely the Pudding Stone in the aptly named Boulder valley below Brim Fell of the Coniston range,these boulders are not erratics but have broken away from the crags above,The Pudding stone being about 25 feet high.

[+Simply Paul]

Close to JollyJax' Are we in Heaven? ....Are we in Hell? rural Oxfordshire cache (at a place called Purgatory on the map!) there's a Hoar Stone marked on the (street)map.

Edited July 12, 2006 by Simply Paul

[+Wadders]

This is a nice one on Dartmoor,Ten commandments stone cache..

There are also many more stones on the moor with names and legends.

 

Ditto this one, Quite amazed to see this rock and "it does exactly what it says on the can" Great cache.

 

Wadders

[+allieballie]

By complete coincidence I hid one at a named erratic last week - haven't submitted it yet though as I have some more caches to set in the area over the next couple of days and I'm going to submit them all together to save people making several journeys. Will let you know as soon as it's been approved.

[+FunLovingGeocacher]

Sorry I thought you said Erotic Rocks - wrong thread

[+Teuchters]

Up on Cairngorm there is an erratic named Clach Bharraig. This is very visible from the road as you drive up onto the carpark at Cairngorm Mountain.

It is named on the Explorer 1:25k but not on the Landranger 1:50k.

 

It is at approx N57 08.528 W003 40.344

 

There are a few caches within distance but not actually at the rock itself:

Sron an Aonaich

Cairngorm 1

Ryvoan

Balmenach Cache

Igloo - Britains Highest Building?

[+HazelS]

Here in Cheshire we have some wonderful sandstone,and Frog's Gob cache fits the bill nicely!!

 

Hi Hazel

 

I've checked the maps (online) and can't see the name anywhere. Plus is it a rock feature or an unattached 'boulder'. I think the list is going to be only those that have a name on the map and are actual individual stones. Let me know if you think Froggy is ok.

 

Thanks for the other suggestions from folk. I've been adding them to the bookmark list. Not sure about Harold's Stones. Should they go in? I think I'd exclude stone circles as such, but I can't tell from the photo if this is just a couple of boulders. What do you think?

 

Any more suggestions? Any stones you know that don't have a cache but are named?

 

I doubt very much that it's named Frogs gob on a map, but I know that locally it's known as that - it's shaped very like a frog!!

[+PopUpPirate]

Pikestones - http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4777

[+NinjaPete]

How about ......he was standing alone which is on the map as Samson's Stone and Mick Jagger which is shown as Rocking Stone.

[+Kryten]

I came across this while looking for "Cave Pass"

[+daytribe]

How about The Old Man of Storr GCPNMP

[+daytribe]

Or this one link

[+Pharisee]

I have a cache placed near to 'The Devil's Jump Stone'. One of only two standing stones / menhirs listed on the ModAnt site in Bedfordshire. It's not shown on the current OS maps but there is a reference to it on a late 19th century map of the area. It's not very impressive, however; at only 24" high and in long grass, you're more likely to trip over it than walk into it. Actually, it looks more like the stump of a broken off concrete lamp post but don't tell the MAs that I said that!!!

[+The Flying Boots]

 

Not sure about Harold's Stones. Should they go in? I think I'd exclude stone circles as such, but I can't tell from the photo if this is just a couple of boulders. What do you think?

 

 

Harolds stones are made of the local "pudding stone" and legend has it that they were thrown down from the nearby Sugar Loaf mountain by Jack o'Kent, a giant, when he was playing pitch and toss with the Devil.

They are marked on OS maps

Does this help at all?

Edited July 13, 2006 by The Flying Boots

[+Team Ballibeg]

The Narnain Stones GCRB3N fits the bill.

 

Dave

[Lactodorum]

With al the talk of caches near interesting stones perhaps this is an opportune moment to remind everyone that there is usually an "exclusion zone" around Scheduled Ancient Monuments (SAM's) and ancient earthworks. While these are frequently publicly accessible it is not normal practice to place cache on/in/under such sites.

[+John Stead]

Here in Cheshire we have some wonderful sandstone,and Frog's Gob cache fits the bill nicely!!

 

Sorry Hazel - I am no geologist but I don't think Frog's Gob is an erratic, more an outcrop but very interesting just the same and something I doubt if I'd have found without geocaching.

[+Kitty Hawk]

I'm sure there's an earthcache near Marlbrough set by The Wombles that is a field full of glacial erratics. Unnamed though I think...

[+allieballie]

How could I have forgotten about this one? It's great!

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...27-6210b200eb2a

 

Sampson's Toe - Yorkshire dales!

Edited July 13, 2006 by allieballie

[+Jango & Boba Fett]

I'm sure there's an earthcache near Marlborough set by The Wombles that is a field full of glacial erratics. Unnamed though I think...

Glaciers In Southern England is the cache although, unfortunately, the Sarsen Stones are not of glacial origin. For one thing the maximum southern limit of glaciation in central England is Oxford where the Anglian Glaciation blocked the former valley of the Thames, diverting it southward through the llll gap along its present course through London.

 

The Sarsen Stones are actually the remains of a sandstone layer that formerly overlay the chalk, but has been eroded away, leaving only "blocks" of the most strongly cemented sandstone which can be found in many places across the chalk downland of southern England (eg the Brighton Rocks). This is a summary from a Geological Field guide:

 

Sarsen Stones

In their unmodified form, the Reading, London, and Bagshot Beds contain no rock suitable for building. But by a natural process of patchy and irregular hardening, certain sands of these formations provide isolated boulders of tough sandstone - the famous Berkshire sarsen stones. These, left lying on the surface after the weathering away of the softer parent sand, may remain in place or be re-incorporated into river sands or gravels, or become embedded in the clay-with-flints. They are an important substrate, and some of our rarest lichens are found on sarsen stones, as in the fields around Ashdown House. The sarsen stones that make the outer ring of Stonehenge may have been dragged there from the Newbury-Marlborough area. Sarsen stones may be found all over Berkshire, and have often been used as corner-stones, as stepping-stones, or gate-posts, or simply built into walls. Sarsen built houses can be seen at Lambourn, Ashbury, and Idstone. Sarsen stones were also used in the chambered barrow of Wayland’s Smithy and, very extensively, in Windsor Castle. Another example of a similar natural hardening process is found around Bagshot Heath,

where a pebbly layer has been cemented by ironstone to form a conglomeratic rock. Blocks of this are used in the tower of Wokingham Church, and the churches of Binfield, Warfield, and Winkfield. Local sarsen stones were used to build the original church at Ashurst near Silwood, and some of these can still be seen in the road cutting below the mini-roundabout at Sunninghill Crossroads.

 

Many of the Sarsen Stones have moved down slope under periglacial conditions, but this is a quite different process which goes on in areas where there is frozen soil. However, recent geochemical analysis of the Blue Stones shows that rather than coming from one particular place in the Preseli Hills they are actually several different types of rock (Blue Stone is actually a stone mason's term) from several different places in Pembrokeshire and that they were most likely transported across the Bristol Channel as erratics in an icesheet to be dumped on the north coast of Devon to Avon.

 

Sorry to be a party pooper

[+civilised]

I'm sure there's an earthcache near Marlborough set by The Wombles that is a field full of glacial erratics. Unnamed though I think...

Glaciers In Southern England is the cache although, unfortunately, the Sarsen Stones are not of glacial origin. For one thing the maximum southern limit of glaciation in central England is Oxford where the Anglian Glaciation blocked the former valley of the Thames, diverting it southward through the llll gap along its present course through London.

 

 

English Nature seem convinced that the stones at Fyfield Down were transported there by glacial action - here.

 

Perhaps there may be local variations in the maximum limit of glaciation.

 

In any event it would appear that none of the stones at Fyfield are individually named

 

civilised

[+Jango & Boba Fett]

English Nature seem convinced that the stones at Fyfield Down were transported there by glacial action - here.

 

Perhaps there may be local variations in the maximum limit of glaciation.

This is stunning information and revolutionises the current understanding of Glacial limits in Southern England I think that civilised should put the Wiltshire English Heritage office in touch with both the Quaternary Research Association and INQA as I think that this startling revision of our understanding of ice dynamics should be shared with the whole community of Quaternary Researchers!

 

Or perhaps it might just be possible that Engish Heritage web page writers was basing there speil on older ideas or that a non specialist confused glacial and periglacial action? I think we should know. Anyway here is an up to date map showing the limit of glaciation as accepted by most Quaternary Scientists, but not apparently English nature in Wiltshire.

 

[+Alibags]

Of course, they could be morrainic deposits?

[+civilised]

English Nature seem convinced that the stones at Fyfield Down were transported there by glacial action - here.

 

Perhaps there may be local variations in the maximum limit of glaciation.

This is stunning information and revolutionises the current understanding of Glacial limits in Southern England I think that civilised should put the Wiltshire English Heritage office in touch with both the Quaternary Research Association and INQA as I think that this startling revision of our understanding of ice dynamics should be shared with the whole community of Quaternary Researchers!

 

Or perhaps it might just be possible that Engish Heritage web page writers was basing there speil on older ideas or that a non specialist confused glacial and periglacial action? I think we should know. Anyway here is an up to date map showing the limit of glaciation as accepted by most Quaternary Scientists, but not apparently English nature in Wiltshire.

 

Well, I would put English Nature in touch with the organisations you mention - but I'm concerned that EN might be put off by the level of sarcasm seemingly inherent in the Quaternary Researcher's responses

 

In the meantime, EN information boards, web sites, and local beliefs are good enough for me, simple as I am.

 

civilised

[+martlakes]

Thanks for all the replies - some very interesting suggestions and some great looking caches already out there.

I've added all the ones that looked like they met the general guidelines to the bookmark list. Obviously, the suggested stones without a cache aren't included - but maybe it might encourage someone local to get out there with a box! I put two more out today near some local stones.

I've also added the recent earth cache cos the Grey Wethers and Sarsen stones are sort of named, but mostly because Avebury and the surrounding area is one of the best in the UK for fascinating stones.

Happy to keep adding if there's any more out there!

Cheers

[+Jango & Boba Fett]

I'm concerned that EN might be put off by the level of sarcasm seemingly inherent in the Quaternary Researcher's responses

 

In the meantime, EN information boards, web sites, and local beliefs are good enough for me, simple as I am.

Sorry if you mistook wry irony , for sarcasm , but your post does raise an issue close to my heart, that of textbook myths . When some statement or theory filters down into textbooks, or in this case EN information boards and web sites, and its very presence there adds to its credulity; however on closer inspection it turns out to be unsubstantiated speculation/totally false/gross oversimplification. One of the most famous is this diagram:

 

The original display was done for a museum conservator, in America, who found its asthetics pleasing. It has come to be a classic textbook myth supposedly illustrating how horses have evolved to be bigger and with fewer toes, unfortunately the horses are out of time sequence, so it shows nothing of the sort.

 

In the case of the Sarcen Stones it appears to be a case of EN and local beliefs not catching up with changes in terminology. Originally erratics were any boulder or stone found at a place with was different from the local bedrock. These erratics were often given a folklore explanation which involved giants dropping things or the founders of places bringing them from afar so the source of erratic is the Latin errare to wander. The term is first used in the late C14, and like many geological terms it has its origins in applied crafts rather than scientific geological investigation. So it would have been a farmer or more probably stone mason who first used the term errare erratics/wandering rock. At this time and right through to the late C19 the two main competing theories of Geology were Neptunianism and Plutonianism; the Neptunian theory explained the the formation of bedrock as being formed by the crystallisation out of the ocean which originally covered the earth (as the depth of this ocean fell the types of rocks precipitated changed); the Plutonian theory explained the formation of different types of rock as the primal earth cooled from a molten ball of magma ( both these theories traced their origins back to ideas first proposed by the Greeks and Romans, they're not creation science which is a C20 idea).

 

By the C18 a synthesis somewhere inbetween the two extremes developed which classified rocks as being either Primary (what we would call igneous & metamorphic) rocks which were formed as the primal molten earth cooled, Secondary (hard sedimentary) rocks which crystallised out as the original world ocean got shallower, Tertiary (semi hard sediments with fossils of recognisable animals in them) which were formed by more recent catastrophic floods (eg when Hercules split open the Straits of Gibraltar), and Quaternary also called Drift which were the deposits of the most recent "Noahian" flood. The terms Tertiary, Quaternary and Drift are still used, although there meanings have changed. This synthesis, which influenced Geological theory right up to into the C19, explained erratics as being dropped by drifting sea ice or washed in at the start of a great flood.

 

Skipping past the Hutton's revolutionary uniformitarianism theory (explaining geology by means of gradual steady present day processes) we reach Louis Aggassiz in the 1840s. Aggassiz working in the Jura mountains on the French Swiss border noticed that he cold see the same features there (erratics, moraines, etc) that he saw associated with glaciers in the Alps, even though there were no glaciers in the Jura. As he travelled around Europe he, and his colleagues identified more and more evidence that there had been a Great Ice Age, as part of which they explained erratics as being moved and dropped by glaciers rather than giants/sea ice/Noah as ballast. However it took nearly 60 years for his ideas to become generally accepted because (i) it smacked of catastophism (large unexpected events, like global floods) and (ii) at the time the existence or large ice sheets (like Antarctica and Greenland) were unknown to most people, even the source of icebergs was mysterious.

 

Come the early C20 and as a result of Nansen, Amundsen, Shackleton and Scott the pendulum swings the other way, so that any strange rock gets explained by the Great Ice Age including Dartmoor Tors and the Sarcen Stones. Systematic mapping of the Drift Geology (see I said it was still used ) in England, particularly by workers at Cambridge University in the 1950s reigned back the more extravagant claims as it was recognised that the maximum southern limit of glacial deposits was not as extensive as previously postulated. In the case of the Sarcen Stones these are only found on chalk downland to the south of the glacial limit while in areas like the Chilterns, Norfolk and the Wolds they are absent.

 

In the last 20 years we have come to understand the flow processes of icesheets more clearly so that we now believe that the glacial limit is not necessarily synchronous with a great ice sheet rising steadily upwards from the Norfolk coast to a 4km thick ice dome over the Cairngorms. There were likely to have been multiple ice domes whose locations can be traced by mapping the distribution and "trains" of erratics, for instance Borrowdale volcanic boulders can be found in the Cheshire plains and Oslo Romb Porphyry cobbles are found in the terminal moraine near Cromer in Norfolk.

 

Unfortunately the Sarsen Stones appear not to be exotic at all. By examining their physical and chemical composition, and any fossil remains they can shown to be identical to the normally quite loose Tertiary sandstones which overly the chalk and were laid down in a giant river delta which covered southern England and Northern France (work carried out at Imperial College London). So the scientific evidence stacks up very strongly on the side of a non glacial origin for the Sarcen Stones, instead they appear to be formed by the localised silification (similar to the formation of flints) of the loose sands to produce giant nodules/concretions of pebbly sand cemented by microcrystaline chert. Subsequently erosion has removed all the loose sand leaving the Sarsen Stones stranded on the chalk downs as mysterious remains of the former pebbly sand beds.

 

Personally I still like the idea of giants wandering around southern England dropping bits of their picnic and like both civilised and martlakes find these and indeed any exoliths a source of fascination and delight.

[+Haggis Hunter]

In Edinburgh you have the Caiystane & the Buckstane.