West Quarry, also called Coal Hills West Quarry, exposes fossil-rich Eyam Limestone at the National Stone Centre near Wirksworth. Crinoid debris and brachiopods record a Carboniferous sea on the edge of the Derbyshire limestone platform. Visit to observe and photograph fossils, leave all rocks in place, and keep well away from quarry faces and the sudden drop into the lower workings.
FIND FREQUENCY: ♦♦♦♦ – Crinoid fragments and brachiopods are documented in the limestone. Look for visible fossils without breaking or removing rock; exposure and visibility vary.
CHILDREN: ♦♦ – Use the centre’s signed visitor routes with close supervision. The quarry edges, steep slopes and lower workings are unsuitable for unsupervised children.
ACCESS: ♦♦♦ – Approach through the National Stone Centre and follow current signs. The historical quarry approach includes a steep descent and is not established as a step-free route.
TYPE: – Disused limestone quarry within a geological visitor site. This is an observation visit, with no collecting or hammering.
DIRECTIONS
♦ Approach the National Stone Centre on Porter Lane, near Wirksworth, using postcode DE4 4LS. Follow the centre’s current entrance and parking signs.
♦ The operator’s visitor information checked in October 2026 states that parking is charged and payment is contactless. Check the current tariff on arrival; the old donation-box directions are no longer current.
♦ Ask at the centre or consult the current site map for a permitted route to West Quarry, also known as Coal Hills West Quarry. It lies north of the High Peak Trail. Do not assume that every path into the quarry complex is open.
♦ The original guide approached a descending track from the car-park footpath. Follow current signs rather than relying on its old train landmark, and do not descend an unmarked steep bank to reach the quarry.
♦ Historical guide reference: SK 28460 55264. The GCR describes Coal Hills West at SK 2850 5530. These identify the quarry, not a safe position at its edge or an entrance to the lower workings.
FOSSIL HUNTING
Plan to examine and photograph fossils where they lie. The original guide’s access conditions prohibit removing specimens, and its older suggestions to collect or split loose rocks conflict with that rule. Leave loose stones, attached fossils and the quarry faces undisturbed.
Crinoids are marine animals related to starfish. Their skeletons break into small calcite pieces, often including disc-shaped stem segments. Many such fragments can accumulate into a crinoidal grainstone, a limestone built largely from skeletal grains.
Brachiopods are shelled marine animals with two valves. The published account of West Quarry and neighbouring Steeplehouse includes both reworked brachiopod fragments and beds with whole gigantoproductids, a group of large productid brachiopods. It does not provide an exact West Quarry species list or positions for individual fossil beds.
The original UK Fossils visit also reported corals and bivalves. Retain those as historical locality observations rather than a promise of finds or a newly verified species list. The exact joint GCR description independently establishes crinoids and brachiopods.
Weathered surfaces may show fossils more clearly than fresh breaks. Use a hand lens and photographs with a scale, without scraping, wetting or moving material. An intact shell, repeated stem segments or organised coral structure is more informative than an isolated pale patch.
West Quarry is one part of a larger quarry complex. The famous shark-debris bed belongs to Steeplehouse, and the carbonate mud-mounds described farther south are different exposures. Neither should be presented as something to locate or collect in West Quarry.
Keep to permitted routes and stay well back from the sudden drop into the lower quarry. Do not approach a face, climb scree or enter lower workings for a better fossil photograph. If a potentially important fossil is visible, record its position safely and tell the centre staff without disturbing it.
Significant discoveries, geological research and conservation milestones at West Quarry.
1959 – An early account of the quarry complex
Shirley published an important early stratigraphic account. The GCR identifies it as part of the research history of the Coal Hills complex, rather than a West-only fossil discovery.
1967 – The Survey describes the district succession
Smith, Rhys and Eden’s memoir documented the limestone stratigraphy and fauna of the wider complex. Its detailed Shaw’s section must remain separate from West.
1970 and 1978 – Sediments and mud-mound fossils are investigated
Walkden’s 1970 work was followed by studies from Timms and from Weaver and Jeffcoat in 1978. Together these form part of the complex’s sedimentological and palaeontological research, addressing mound character and relationships to surrounding strata. They do not establish a West-only species list.
1982 – The quarry complex is illustrated
Walkden’s study provided the basis for the quarry block diagram later reproduced by the GCR. It helps distinguish West’s position from the southern mound-bearing exposures.
1983 and 1984 – Mud-mound development and exposure features are examined
Gutteridge’s 1983 study and Oakman’s 1984 work developed research into the complex’s carbonate buildups and surrounding sediments. Gutteridge’s findings include depositional cavities and later exposure features in the mound-bearing sections, rather than extra West Quarry beds.
1985 – Colehill Quarries receives SSSI notification
The citation records Colehill Quarries as a new Site of Special Scientific Interest for its fossil-rich Carboniferous limestone environments. This is a conservation milestone for the quarry complex.
1989 – The exposure surface gains stratigraphic significance
Gutteridge’s work interpreted the break at the Monsal Dale–Eyam transition in the mound-bearing complex. The GCR relates this to a period of platform emergence.
1990 – The National Stone Centre opens
The Institute of Quarrying’s official history records the centre’s opening in 1990. The former quarry landscape became a setting for public education about stone and geology.
1991 – The mound-bearing formation boundary is revised
Gutteridge’s published revision places the mud-buildups beneath the exposure surface within the Monsal Dale Limestones where those buildups occur. It does not create an additional West Quarry bed.
1995 – Further work develops the mud-mound interpretation
Gutteridge’s later study is cited for the complex’s mound sediments, cavities and fossil accumulations. These remain contextual southern exposures rather than West-only observations.
2004 – The GCR gives the joint northern-quarry description
The review explicitly describes the 11 m package at West and Steeplehouse, including crinoidal grainstones, whole gigantoproductids and chert. It also separates those quarries from the southern mud-mound sections.
GEOLOGY
The exposed limestone belongs to the Eyam Limestone Formation within the Peak Limestone Group. It is Brigantian in age, within the Viséan Stage of the Carboniferous. The rocks formed near the southern margin of the Derbyshire carbonate platform.
The Geological Conservation Review describes an 11 m succession jointly at Coal Hills West Quarry and Steeplehouse, both north of the High Peak Trail. It includes bioclastic grainstones with reworked brachiopods and crinoids, thick beds of well-sorted crinoidal grainstone, some beds containing whole gigantoproductids, and scattered nodular and tabular chert.
That joint description is not a numbered West Quarry bed log. It gives neither individual layer thicknesses nor a demonstrated top-to-bottom order for those four components. The chart therefore shows the documented rock types without inventing a measured local column.
The grainstones record abundant skeletal debris moved and sorted by marine currents. The wider Eyam succession is interpreted as a carbonate sand body with high-energy transport near the platform edge. This regional interpretation helps explain the local crinoidal rocks without assigning every sedimentary feature in neighbouring quarries to West.
The GCR’s quarry diagram distinguishes the pale Eyam grainstones at West from the carbonate mud-mounds farther south. The southern quarries preserve an older Monsal Dale succession, an exposure surface and younger Eyam deposits draped over mound relief. Their measured thicknesses and cave deposits are separate evidence.
Gutteridge’s 1991 boundary revision placed the carbonate mud-buildups below the exposure surface within the Monsal Dale Limestones where those buildups occur. It does not establish an extra mud-mound bed or a newly exposed formation boundary in West Quarry.
Detailed geology of West Quarry, its jointly described limestone components and the separate surrounding quarry sections.
Coal Hills West Quarry is the northern quarry identified at SK 2850 5530 in the Geological Conservation Review. The description below distinguishes its joint published account with Steeplehouse from the different mud-mound sections south of the High Peak Trail. The components are not a numbered top-to-bottom bed log.
PEAK LIMESTONE GROUP
Eyam Limestone Formation
The joint 11 m succession. The GCR describes Coal Hills West and Steeplehouse together as exposing an 11 m package. This is a jointly reported succession, not an independently measured complete thickness for West Quarry alone. No individual component thicknesses or precise bed positions are supplied.
Bioclastic grainstone with reworked shells. The account records brachiopod and crinoid material broken up and redeposited as limestone grains. Grainstone denotes a grain-supported carbonate rock with little muddy matrix. The published description supports these broad fossil groups but not an exact West species assemblage.
Thickly bedded crinoidal grainstone. A separately described component is well-sorted limestone dominated by crinoid debris. Sorting records the concentration of skeletal grains during transport and deposition. Its thick bedding should not be converted into an invented single bed thickness.
Whole gigantoproductid beds. Some beds contain whole large productid brachiopods. The joint account does not identify a particular West Quarry species, numbered shell bed or independently measured shell-band thickness. The occurrences therefore remain a documented fossil-bearing component rather than a collecting target.
Nodular and tabular chert. Chert occurs intermittently as nodules and tabular developments in the jointly described package. These silica-rich features are not assigned individual thicknesses or a continuous marker-bed position in the West account.
What the quarry diagram establishes. GCR Figure 7.17 places West in the pale grainstone facies of the Eyam Limestones, while the carbonate mud-mounds are shown farther south. The diagram deliberately shortens part of the east–west layout near the footbridge. It illustrates spatial relationships rather than a scale-accurate route map or vertical bed log.
Depositional setting. The wider Eyam succession is interpreted as a high-energy body of carbonate skeletal sand along the Derbyshire Platform margin, with transport broadly off the shelf towards the south. This explains the importance of sorted crinoid debris in the local grainstones. Large cross-beds and channels reported in named southern quarries are not automatically observations from West.
The southern mud-mounds are separate sections. Lower Coal Hills, Shaw’s and Coal Hills quarries preserve approximately 27 m of upper Monsal Dale strata and mound relief, followed by approximately 23 m of lower Eyam strata draping that relief. These are southern-section measurements, distinct from the joint 11 m northern-quarry package. Their mound fossils, exposure surfaces and ancient cave deposits belong to those exposures. They do not add measured layers to the West Quarry section.
The formation-boundary revision. Gutteridge’s 1991 paper placed carbonate mud-buildups beneath an exposure surface within the Monsal Dale Limestones where the buildups occur. The paper explains that type sections without these buildups were unaffected. This is important history for the quarry complex, but it establishes neither a new mound in West nor a demonstrated local boundary exposure.
The limit of the fossil evidence. The Petrodus shark-debris bed is explicitly recorded at Steeplehouse, not at West. Similarly, the detailed mound fauna and the older Survey’s composite Shaw’s section should not be transferred here. The original UK Fossils report of corals and bivalves is retained as a historical West locality observation, without a new species determination.
References.
Cossey and colleagues (2004): National Stone Centre, Geological Conservation Review.
BGS Lexicon: Eyam Limestone Formation.
Gutteridge (1991): revision of the Monsal Dale–Eyam boundary.
Smith, Rhys and Eden (1967): district memoir.
Original UK Fossils West Quarry observations, inspected 2011.
SAFETY
Keep well away from the quarry faces, overhangs and scree. Rock can fall without warning, and weathered blocks on a slope can move underfoot. A helmet does not make standing beneath a face safe.
The lower workings have a sudden, steep drop. Stay back from all edges, do not climb down, and do not follow an apparent shortcut into the lower quarry. Supervise children closely and keep dogs under control.
Follow current signs, fences and staff instructions. Avoid the quarry in poor visibility, strong winds or slippery conditions, and return by the permitted route if conditions worsen.
Do not hammer, split rock or use tools on the faces or loose material. This preserves the site and avoids splinters, dislodged blocks and disturbance near unstable ground.
EQUIPMENT
Take sturdy footwear, suitable outdoor clothing, a map or current visitor leaflet, a camera and a hand lens. A small scale helps document a fossil without removing it.
Leave collecting hammers, chisels and specimen bags behind. Photographs and careful observations are the appropriate record of this visit.
CLEANING AND TREATING
No preparation is needed for an observation visit. Do not scrape, brush aggressively, wash or apply chemicals to fossils at the site. Photograph natural surfaces and leave specimens in place.
For a specimen already lawfully held from a documented historical collection, keep its original label and seek specialist advice before preparation. Hard limestone, delicate shell material and chert can respond differently to tools and chemicals; an old locality label does not authorise collecting new material.
IDENTIFY YOUR FINDS
Need help identifying a fossil? Share clear photos, where you found it and its size with the community.
FURTHER READING
Geological Conservation Review: National Stone Centre quarry complex
BGS Lexicon: Eyam Limestone Formation
National Stone Centre: current visitor information
Institute of Quarrying: National Stone Centre history
ACCESS RIGHTS
The National Stone Centre describes its land as private property open for recreational access. This is permission to use its visitor routes subject to signs and conditions, not permission to excavate or collect.
The original guide expressly says that specimens must not be removed. Follow an observation-only approach and ask staff about any temporary closures before entering the quarry route.
The site lies within the protected Colehill quarry complex. Its conservation interest includes fossil-rich Carboniferous limestones and the relationships between different marine environments. Respect all conservation signs and barriers; this guide does not establish a fresh boundary survey for every access point.
It is important to follow our ‘Code of Conduct’ when collecting fossils or visiting any site. Please also read our ‘Terms and Conditions‘
LINKS
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♦ UK Fossils Network
