Triassic Footprints Unearthed in Wirral's Storeton Wood Quarry
After weeks of relentless rain, the sun finally broke through, casting a dry and bright light over the Wirral peninsula. While the distant Welsh hills remained cloaked in snow, Storeton Wood offered a serene escape. This secondary woodland, now home to oak, beech, and silver birch trees, was once a bustling quarry site. The ground below was protected by a coppery layer of fallen leaves, shielding the soil from recent downpours. Fallen branches hosted a feast of fungi, and in places, creamy white Storeton sandstone peeked through like discarded vertebrae. The rhythmic drumming of great spotted woodpeckers echoed through the trees.
A Glimpse into the Past: The Quarry's Hidden Secrets
Standing by the remnants of George Stephenson's quarry track, one can almost hear the clamour of 1838. Workmen were busy extracting sandstone when they stumbled upon mysterious handprints in the rock. Initially, they believed these were signs of people lost in Noah's flood, but Victorian scientists later identified them as footprints of a crocodile-like creature named Chirotherium storetonense, meaning "hand beast." These impressions date back an astonishing 240 million years to the Triassic period.
During the Triassic era, this creature likely inhabited a lake within a vast, Europe-wide desert. The muddy edges of this ancient lake preserved its footprints perfectly. Eventually, slabs featuring these remarkable prints were sent to various museums. The Liverpool Natural History Society, now defunct, rewarded the quarry workers with 20 shillings for their discovery. Although the quarry has long been filled with spoil from the first Mersey tunnel's construction, its legacy endures.
The Modern Quest for Ancient History
In a celebration of this discovery, a replica of the Chirotherium was engraved on the wall surrounding Storeton Wood, bridging deep time with the new millennium. Venturing into the wood, I navigated hummocky ground and fallen tree trunks, pausing to admire the fungi and fearing my search might be in vain. Suddenly, there it was: the Chirotherium replica, bright and clear on the wall, far more vivid than I had imagined.
The scaled-down dimensions of the engraving, based on a 2.5-metre-long beast with a long tail for balance, sparked my imagination about the original creature. This journey through Storeton Wood transformed into a temporal voyage, connecting fossilised footprints sequestered since the Triassic, childhood memories of Stephenson's Sankey viaduct built with Storeton sandstone, and the human desire to commemorate milestones in the very stone that bore these ancient marks.
