The Hemlock Stone
I recently visited this interesting place: The Hemlock Stone just outside Nottingham. It is a peculiar and singular formation, which like an old decayed tooth stands proud of the otherwise toothless gums of the eroded Triassic sandstone hills of Nottingham. There is nothing else in the vicinity like it and one wonders why it too hasn't long since been eroded. According to the geological blurb the sandstone at this spot is more strongly cemented than the surroundings and hence its resilience to erosion; however there is apparently some disagreement as to whether human quarrying activity might also have been involved. The Hemlock stone therefore presents similar doubts about its origins that the Cheesewring on Bodmin moor might once have done. For my blog post on the Cheesewring see here:
According to Geologists the 400 metre thick pebbly sandstone layer around Nottingham was deposited in Triassic times by monsoonal rains eroding an ancient mountain range to the south of Nottingham. Nottingham was a dessert region landlocked in the huge mono-continent of Pangaea. In some places water rounded pebbles are seen half embedded in the sandstone floor and can be removed with a bit of effort. I took one as a souvenir.
The Pebbly Sandstone of Nottingham
The likely depth of time occupied by the sequence of events needed to generate this Nottinghamshire landscape is, as is so often the case with geological sequences, breath taking: Those ancient mountains may well have started their life as ancient rock layers themselves. They were then uplifted and eroded by rains and rivers which deposited them as silicate grains and pebbles. As Pangaea broke up advancing and retreating seas deposited further layers of rock hundreds of metres thick on top of the sandstone. Over long periods of time all these layers were uplifted, folded and in turn eroded down to the basement sandstone rock, eventually producing the the landscape we see today.
Like the Cheesewring the Hemlock Stone's singularity probably attracted the attention of man's sense of the numinous and it has therefore been the place of religious ritual. Not surprisingly its conspicuous form strikes a sense of awe even in those whose reaction is not necessarily spiritual:
Thou petrified enigma.....what tempest sculptured thee? (Henry S Sutton, 1848)
Similar awe has been expressed by antiquarians about the Cheesewring:
If a man dreamt of a great pile of stones he would dream such a pile as the Cheesewring
...this wonderful pile of stones...but whether the work of nature or not I know not.
The Cheesewring. Bodmin Moor: Granite, not sandstaone
