Bradgate Park SSSI
Location and Access Information
Grid Reference: SK 530110
Precambrian crags at Bradgate Park.
Bradgate Park is situated near the village of Newton Lindford, some 10km north-west of Leicester. There are three entrances to the Park were parking is available. The busiest is beside the church in Newtown Linford (SK 523097). There is a north entrance giving access to the Old John area (SK 523117) and another way in on the east side (SK 542114) near Cropston reservoir
View the site map on Nature on the Map
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Geological Interest
There are a number of excellent exposures of Pre-Cambrian, Charnian aged rocks (approximately 600 million years old) scattered around Bradgate Park. These comprise a series of volcanic ashes, grits and slates which were deposited on the flanks of volcanic islands similar to those of the modern day Caribbean. Other molten rocks (igneous) were intruded into the rock sequence at a later date. The exposures in the Park are important, as they have been taken to represent the type sections for four units of these ancient marine rocks. The exposures in Bradgate Park, and other parts of the Charnwood district, are famed in geological circles for the fossils of soft-bodied jellyfish-like and worm-like creatures that they contain; these representing some of the oldest multicellular organisms so far known to science. In Bradgate Park, the planes of exposed rock at Memorial Crags exhibit some of these fossils, which take the form of disc-shaped impressions. Since their initial discovery in the Charnwood area communities of similar fossils have been described from localities as far afield as Russia, Newfoundland and Australia.
