[Skip to content]

.

Geology

Why not experience the Black Country Walk Through Time at Wrens Nest in Dudley, a self guided 1-2 hour walk with information that can be downloaded from the BBC BlackCountry website.
 
Geology is a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks. There is geological heritage in abundance in Dudley.
"In no part of England are more geological features brought together in a small compass than in the environs of Dudley"
 
These were the words of Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, given at a lecture in Dark cavern, beneath Castle Hill, Dudley in September 1849.
 
Murchison was one of the geologists who worked out the story of the past of Dudley.
image 1
image 1
The area of Dudley, 420 million years ago, lay in the middle of a tropical sea.
image 2
image 2
Millions of corals and other sea creatures were born, had young themselves and died in the warm waters of this ocean
image 3
image 3
The corals created giant reefs and the shells of the fish, as millions of years went by, turned into limestone.
image 4
image 4
120 million years ago the sea bed rose turning the area into a swamp. Water consistently drowned the trees that grew there. These under pressure eventually became coal.
image 5
image 5
The great tectonic plates that the continents 'float' on met each other in a cataclysmic crash - buckling the land.
 
 
 
Some day, millions of years in the future, the rocks will return to the sea where they were born.
Wrens Nest National Nature Reserve is an area of parkland approximately 1 kilometre to the northeast of Dudley Town Centre, West Midlands, England.

It was declared a National Nature Reserve in 1956 on the basis of its exceptional geological and palaeontological features of Silurian age (dating to approximately 420 million years ago). This was the UK's first ever geological National Nature Reserve.
 
If you would like more information about Wrens Nest and the Seven Sisters please take a look at the Wren's Nest pages on the Dudley Council website.
For further information on the Geology of Dudley why not visit the Dudley Museum & Art Gallery or look at their web pages.
 
Dudley Museum & Art Gallery
St James's Road
Dudley
DY1 1HU
Tel: 01384 815575
Email Dudley Museum
Opening Times: Mon-Sat 10am-4pm (Closed Bank Holiday's)