Tuesday 6 December 2016

Fossil Tree, Stanhope (NY997392)


© Copyright Paul Buckingham and licensed for 

Stanhope’s famous fossil tree can be found built into the town’s churchyard wall, being one of the region’s most eye-catching oddities. A nearby plaque reads:

Fossil Tree – Sigillaria SP 
This great tree grew in a forest of the middle carboniferous period (about 250 million years ago) near Edmundbyers Cross now 1,550 feet above sea-level. As its vegetable matter decayed this was replaced by sand which has formed a perfect cast in hard ganister. The roots (stigmaria) show their characteristic form. The tree was brought to Stanhope and erected here in 1962 by Mr J.G.Beaston.

Edmundbyers Cross is a little fragment of antiquity to be found by the roadside of the B6278 about three miles north of Stanhope – and the quarry in which the fossil was found (along with a couple of other specimens, apparently) is still marked on OS maps. The finds, which were made in 1905 (some sources say 1915), lay goodness-knows-where until one of them was deposited on the edge of the churchyard several decades later by the said Mr Beaston. The chap in question was a local quarrying entrepreneur with a particular penchant for ganister stone.

Some consider the placement of the tree somewhat ironic given the church’s belief that the age of the Earth is around 6,000 years old!


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