The cache is set in a public park and can be accessed at anytime,
this is not the largest erratic you will ever see but never the
less it’s an erratic.
Towneley was the home of the Towneley family for over 500 years
but in 1901 it was sold to Burnley Corporation. The family departed
in March 1902 leaving behind a building almost completely empty
except for a couple of tables and a few pictures in the chapel. The
park was opened to the public in June 1902 and in May 1903 the
Great Hall and the south wing of the house were opened for a
temporary art exhibition. Today, the Museum houses a variety of
displays encompassing; Natural History, Egyptology, Local History,
Textiles, Decorative Art and Regional Furniture. You are able to
explore the period rooms, art gallery and learn more about
Burnley's history whilst a Mouse Trail through the Museum keeps
children entertained.
I found an interesting piece in the museum about the history of the
boulder and that's how I came to the name of Boulder Dash. In
ancient times it was believed that the boulder was a meteor and had
magical powers and the grufftys (much like our modern day Morris
dancers) would worship the stone and on the summer solstice the
Towneley family would allow the grufftys a two day celebration
where drinking, bell ringing and dancing around the stone with
multi-coloured hankies was had, and this was known as yonning the
yonner.
Many lowland areas of Britain affected by Pleistocene ice sheets
are now covered by glacial drift. This is made up of sheets of
boulder clay and sand and gravel, left behind by ice sheets and
distributed by their melt water. The material has been derived from
the land surface over which the ice sheets passed. The erosive
power of the ice collected limestone boulders (erratic) from the
Ribble Valley and transported them into Sheddon Valley. These
limestone boulders were excavated from glacial boulder clay by a
process known as hushing.
A glacial erratic is a piece of rock that deviates from the size
and type of rock native to the area in which it rests; the name
"erratic" is based on the errant location of these boulders. These
rocks were carried to their current locations by glacial ice, often
over hundreds of kilometres. Erratics can range in size from
pebbles to large boulders such as Big Rock (16,500 tons) in
Alberta. Geologists identify erratics by studying the rocks
surrounding the position of the erratic and the composition of the
erratic itself.
Erratics were once considered evidence of a massive flood
approximately 10,000 years ago, similar to the legendary floods
described in the texts of ancient civilizations throughout the
world.
To claim this as a find you must upload a photograph of yourself
holding your GPS in the foreground, if on your own then a picture
of your GPS with the boulder will suffice.
Also required is for you to estimate the circumference of the
boulder and from the plaque on the rock tell me where the rock came
from and e-mail me with the details (please do not post this on
your log for obvious reasons).
No photo and e-mail will result in your log being
deleted.