High Weald Anvil2010 A free guide to one of England’s finest landscapes Find Out About • Explore • Enjoy • Be Proud Of • Take Action • www.highweald.org An Elusive Icon Glorious Gardens In this issue … Looking out for deer – the High Discovering the landscape The Pocket History of Weald’s largest native mammal through garden days out a Dinosaur Pages 4 & 5 Pages 12 & 13 How a chance find in Cuckfield formed the basis of modern palaeontology Pages 2 & 3 Horsham • East Grinstead • Haywards Heath • Crowborough • Heathfield • Battle • Wadhurst • Royal Tunbridge Wells • Cranbrook • Tenterden • Rye 2 High Weald Anvil The High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Welcome n the last couple of The pocket history Iyears the term “car- bon footprint” has become popular with the media and politi- of a dinosaur cians as a catchphrase for our impact on the world’s climate. How- ever, carbon footprints are not the focus for this year’s Anvil. Instead we have decid- ed to look at “footprints” in a broader sense. The High Weald is a landscape that has been shaped by man – and creatures – over generations, so we have delved into the area’s history to explore some of the last- ing “footprints” made by previous generations. Some we value and are thankful for, while others are more of a conundrum. Dinosaurs were the first to tramp the sandstones which form the underlying geology of the area – and their footprints can still be seen where the rock has been exposed. Later, the Anglo-Saxons left perhaps the most significant footprint on the landscape – the small, irregu- lar-shaped fields, scattered settlements and drove routes. The Victorians brought us the landscaped garden – and with it the rhododendron, one of the area’s most invasive plant species. Deer are another mixed blessing. Delving into the past leaves me wondering what foot- print our generation will leave on the landscape. All the talk of climate change tends to be negative – but what about the positive? My vision, and the one set out in the High Weald Management Plan, is a living, working land- An artist’s impression of the landscape 140 million years ago scape with a long and bright future. To achieve this vision, we need collective action – hence our A-Z of suggestions on pages 14 and 15. Who could imagine that a chance find, on a stroll through the village of Cuckfield, would form the basis of modern palaeontology… n a sunny morning in 1822, bones to two famous scientists – Baron while Dr Gideon Mantell, an Georges Cuvier in Paris, and Dr William Oobstetrician, was making a Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford Councillor Sylvia Tidy, house call in Cuckfield, his wife Ann University. Baron Cuvier wrote back sug- Chairman, High Weald Joint Advisory Committee decided to take a stroll through the gesting that the remains were from a rhi- village. She passed a pile of rocks on noceros. Buckland thought they were the roadside, that were about to be from a large fish, and suggested Mantell The High Weald Anvil has been published by the used to repair the road, and noticed © The Natural History Museum, London give up his research. High Weald AONB Unit. The Unit is a specialist an unusual object embedded in one of A few weeks later, on a visit to the team that advises on the management of this nation- them. On closer examination she Royal College of Surgeons in London, he ally valued landscape. It furthers understanding of realised it was a fossil, so put it in her was shown the skeleton of an iguana that the area’s special qualities and enables action to pocket to show her husband later. Charles Darwin had recently brought back conserve it. Little did she know, but her discovery from the West Indies. The iguana’s teeth was to be one of the most significant were almost identical to those discovered The High Weald AONB Joint Advisory Committee discoveries in the whole of the history by Mantell, only much smaller. (a partnership of 15 local of dinosaurs. Dr Gideon Mantell authorities, Natural England and organisations 1790 - 1852 representing community, recreation, wildlife and farming interests) guides In 1834 Dr Mantell heard that the work of the High Iguanodon remains had been Weald AONB Unit. discovered in a pit in Maidstone. Before he could get there, the rock Written by High Weald AONB Unit staff. Hylaeosaurus, meaning had been blasted with dynamite, Editor Jennifer Stuart-Smith. “Wealden lizard” but a large number of bones remained embedded in a slab of Published by the High Weald AONB Unit, Dr Mantell, a keen fossil collector, rock. The quarry owner wanted £25 Woodland Enterprise Centre, immediately recognised the object as a for the slab, so Dr Mantell’s friends Iguanodon Hastings Road, Flimwell, fossil tooth, but was unable to match it to clubbed together and bought it for Dr Mantell realised he had found the East Sussex, TN5 7PR any known creature. He managed to trace him. remains of a giant reptile, not unlike an the rock to a quarry in Whitemans Green, He set about reconstructing the iguana, so named the creature Iguanodon, Tel 01580 879500 north of Cuckfield, where he found more Iguanodon on paper, from the meaning literally “iguana tooth”. Fax 01580 879499 teeth and other remains. Spurred on by bones held in the slab of rock. The Iguanodon thus became the first dinosaur Email [email protected] excitement, he widened his search to rock became known as the in the world to be recognised and named. Website www.highweald.org quarries in Tilgate Forest where he found “Maidstone Slab” and was placed In 1832 Dr Mantell discovered another more teeth and bones from this unknown on display in Mantell’s personal dinosaur in Tilgate Forest and named it Funded by members of the High Weald Joint creature. From the age of the rock, he museum where it became known Hylaeosaurus, meaning “Wealden lizard”. Advisory Committee (see back page). realised that it must have died about 130 as the “Mantell-Piece”. The Mantell- Gideon Mantell went on to search for, © High Weald AONB Unit 2010 million years ago – long before mammals Piece is now on display at the discover and identify many other dinosaur evolved. Natural History Museum in London. remains in his unofficial role as the World’s Dr Mantell sent the teeth and fossil first-ever dinosaur hunter. Find Out About • Explore • Enjoy • Be Proud Of • Take Action High Weald Anvil 3 The making of the High Weald The Hastings Group, a series of clay and sand deposits that were laid down in the Lower Cretaceous period, makes up the under- Main sandstone outcrops lying geology of the High Weald, now exposed by the wearing Gideon Mantell’s dinosaur finds away of other sediments such as Weald clay, lower greensand Tilgate High Weald AONB boundary and chalk. It is a complex group of sediments, formed when Forest dinosaurs still roamed the area, and includes sandstones deposit- SUMMARISED GEOLOGY ed in fresh-water conditions and mudstones deposited in brack- Cuckfield ish (semi-marine) conditions. It is the differing resistance of the Gault & Upper Greensand Rye soft clays and harder sandstones of the Hastings Group that has Grey Chalk given us the High Weald’s rolling hills and steep-sided gills. Lower Greensand Group There are many places where you can see the area’s under- Pett lying geology: active and disused quarries and pits as well as Wealden Group Fairlight road cuttings and “natural exposures” as they are called, such Hastings Wealden Group: Hastings Beds Bexhill as Harrison’s Rocks and the banks of streams. However, the best exposures are found along the coast where you can find fish, White Chalk shark, plant and reptile fossils – and even dinosaur footprints. Roy Shepherd showing fossils LOOK OUT FOR… to a young enthusiast © Roy Shepherd © Roy Shepherd Dinosaur footprints in coastal locations. The footprint cast above shows Iguanadon’s characteristic short, wide toes, ideally suited for carrying the dinosaur’s heavy body and tail Present day dinosaur hunters © Roy Shepherd oy Shepherd discovered his pas- To keep up with public demand for ning scenery. He recommends searching Rippled sandstone, which reveals the sediment was sion for fossil hunting at the age information and advice on fossil hunting, on the exposed foreshore and among the formed in shallow water. It can sometimes be spotted Rof four when he found a strange the best locations and the most exciting boulders and shingle. ‘’At low tide, if shin- in the stone used for the area’s vernacular buildings object in his father’s garden shed, in finds, the site has been re-launched and gle isn’t covering its surface, well-pre- Arundel, West Sussex. “It was an now features panoramic views of cliffs, served dinosaur footprints can be seen in oddly shaped stone, golden in colour, identifying the different layers – a chal- the Ashdown Sandstone on the fore- with stripes running from top to bot- lenging task even for a specialist. Creating shore.’’ tom,” says Roy. His father told him the panorama for Beachy Head took Roy The most common fossils found at that it was called a Shepherd’s Crown over four weeks. Fairlight and Pett Level are bivalve and that it was millions of years old. For Roy, the coastal locations at the Neomiodon, which look like a modern-day “I asked him how it got its name, and eastern end of the High Weald are fantas- clam, and are visible on the surface of he pointed to the patterns on the stone’s tic because of the combination of easily foreshore boulders.