© Copyright Paul Buckingham and licensed for
reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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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