Image ID: 41974

Bluebell Hill, Bramcote

Courtesy of Mr J S Sonley

Bluebell Hill
Bramcote
Nottinghamshire
England

A considerable part of the woodland is covered by Woodland Protection Orders, and Bluebell Wood near the Burnt Hill sandstone scarp is recognised as a site of local wildlife interest. The scarp feature itself is a distinctive landmark for travellers on the A52 Nottingham-Derby road. This picture is looking south-east, showing the sandstone outcrop in the distance. This rock is one of many outcrops in the area. The Hemlock Stone, Stapleford Hill and Bramcote Hills are all made up of red sandstone, which was deposited in the early Triassic period over 200 million years ago. The upper part of the nearby Hemlock Stone is heavily impregnated with barium sulphate or barites, a mineral that is resistant to weathering processes and thus forms a protective cap above the pillar of softer rock below. Over many millennia, erosion of the softer sandstone surrounding the pillar by water, ice and wind has shaped the strange form of the Hemlock Stone that we see today. Barytes also occurs in other parts of Stapleford and Bramcote Hills, and can be seen here. Mining and quarrying extraction industries have been a key feature of the local landscape, including deep coal mining to the west and north, opencast coal mining to the west and south and sand quarrying on the north slopes of Stapleford Hill itself. Sand quarrying continued on the Bramcote side of Coventry Lane until the 1990s. Nearby Sandiacre and Sandicliffe are named after the rocks around this part of the Erewash Valley. The underlying sandstone of the valley has created a natural aquafer, in which water seeps through the filtering rock and is held in it above harder layers of rock. This has been tapped since the late victorian period (there are inconspicuous pumps near the Station Road-Derby Road Bridge between Stapleford and Sandiacre), supplying much of the areas drinking water.

Date: c 1940

Organisation Reference: NCCS001717

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