The
Unofficial WebsiteAnston Stones Wood
Anston Stones Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Nature Reserve which is parallel to the A57 Worksop Road to the east of South Anston. There is a geological trail through the woods where you can see 260 million years of geology and the hand of man in the form of the mineral railway that used to carry coal from Dinnington Colliery and other points north.
The story of the rocks began in the Permian period about 260 million years ago. All the land masses on the Earth formed one large continent Pangaea. The land that would later become Britain was near the Equator and was mostly arid desert. However there was a large expanse of shallow salty water called the Zechstein Sea which stretched from England to Poland. The sea was fringed with reefs which can be seen today as grey gnarled crags which contain fossil remains.
The Zechstein Sea dried out several times over countless millennia each time leaving behind thick beds of pale Magnesian limestone which can be seen throughout the trail. When the sea dried out permanently thick layers of gypsum, potash and rock salt were laid down. The limestone layers were buried deep beneath the earth during subsequent geological periods until earth movements, erosion and weathering brought them to the surface again in our own geological period - the Quaternary. Britain was covered by various Ice Ages which scoured and moved vast amounts of rock and soil.
During the last Ice Age which only finally retreated about 10000 years ago this part of Britain was not glaciated but meltwater flowed off the glaciers further north. These rivers, torrential and filled with rock debris, cut the gorge that forms Anston Stones Wood today. The river is now the called Anston Brook.
The day we walked there it was as if the Zechstein Sea had returned - wellies and waterproofs were an absolute must. Take a walk down the The Anston Stones Geological Trail here.