Pocketgate Quarry
Internationally significant (but not because of the climbing)
Internationally significant (but not because of the climbing)
No climbing allowed: Pocketgate Quarry is a site of extreme scientific importance.
In 1957, schoolboys climbing in the quarry found a strange fossil, the discovery of which changed science's view of when multicellular life first existed on Earth. The genus of the fossilised lifeform is named Charnia after Charnwood Forest. Leicestershire's favourite son, Sir David Attenborough, talks about the fossil at the start of the documentary below.
In 1957, schoolboys climbing in the quarry found a strange fossil, the discovery of which changed science's view of when multicellular life first existed on Earth. The genus of the fossilised lifeform is named Charnia after Charnwood Forest. Leicestershire's favourite son, Sir David Attenborough, talks about the fossil at the start of the documentary below.
The quarry contains ancient rare fossils. A concentric ring structure (Charniodiscus concentricus), the first Precambrian fossil, was discovered over a hundred years ago. More recently (1959) a frond‑like structure was found. They are thought to be some form of ancient seaweed. The only other ones occur in Australia. If you find them, leave them alone. They have been there longer than you.
- Leicestershire Climbs (1993)
In April 1957, I went rock-climbing in Charnwood Forest with two friends, Richard Allen and Richard Blachford (‘Blach’), fellow students at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester. I was already interested in geology and knew that the rocks of the Charnian Supergroup were Precambrian although I had not heard of the Australian fossils. Richard Allen and I agree that Blach (who died in the early 1960s) drew my attention to the leaf-like fossil holotype now on display in Leicester City Museum. I took a rubbing and showed it to my father, who was Minister of the Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel in East Bond Street, taught part-time at University College (soon to be Leicester University) and thus knew Trevor Ford. We took Trevor to visit the fossil site and convinced him that it was a genuine fossil. His publication of the discovery in the Journal of the Yorkshire Geological Society established the genus Charnia and aroused worldwide interest
