Geology Site Account

Site name: Eastfield Plantation Puddingstone

Grid reference: TL 5074 3400

Description of site:

A very large boulder of Hertfordshire puddingstone is situated one kilometre north-east of Wicken Bonhunt church. It is 2.5 x 1.4 x 0.6 metres in size and is one of the largest boulders of Hertfordshire puddingstone in Essex. The site is on private land and permission from the landowner is required before visiting.

The boulder sits in a hedgerow just east of a small wood known as Eastfield Plantation and is very weathered and coated with lichen. According to a former farm worker it was recovered from an adjacent field in the early 1980s and required the use of heavy machinery to move it. It sits precisely on the boundary of Newport and Wicken Bonhunt parishes and it is interesting to speculate whether it may be an ancient boundary stone. On top of this giant boulder is a smaller, flat puddingstone 1.2 x 0.9 x 0.3 metres in size, and a small rounded sarsen stone, both of which appear to have been placed here more recently.

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Hertfordshire Puddingstone

Hertfordshire Puddingstone is an extremely hard rock with an interesting history. About 60 million years ago, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, this boulder was part of a beach of flint pebbles on the coast of a subtropical sea. About 55 million years ago the sea had retreated and the layer of pebbles was situated beneath the soil in a hot, dry climate similar to that of the Kalahari Desert today. During this time the pebbles were cemented together by quartz, forming an incredibly tough layer of rock.

During the Ice Age, about half a million years ago, rivers and glaciers broke up this layer and scattered the fragments over Hertfordshire and Essex. This boulder is one of these fragments and the original flint pebbles can be clearly seen. Puddingstone is so called because the pebbles give it the appearance of a plum pudding. It is usually called Hertfordshire Puddingstone because these boulders are most commonly found in East Hertfordshire. Some puddingstone is very colourful and in Georgian and Victorian times it was often cut and polished to make jewelry and decorative items such as snuff boxes.