Looking out across Swindon's Front Garden you get the chance of seeing both older and younger rock formations together.

Old Clay

The valley below, with the M4 cutting across it, is made up of Kimmeridge Clay which was laid down in a deep open muddy sea
97 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period.

Compared to the choppy seas that created Swindon's Portland Beds, Kimmeridge Clay seas were quieter, darker and less oxygenated.

How Swindon's Front Garden may have looked during the Jurassic Period

As a result it's here in the Kimmeridge Clay that most of Swindon's large fossils have been found.

The valley was used by early man as a source of fuel and clay for pottery and between 500-2000 BC local Swindonians would have let their pigs forage in the woodlands that covered the clay valleys.

But for later generations the clay soil proved to be less profitable. Too heavy and sticky for crops it could only be used for pastureland. You can still see traces today where the clay lands were farmed. Between West Leaze and West Leaze Farm you can still see the ghost of a former village street, boundaries and earthworks.

Young Chalk

To your left you can see the large tracts of chalk of the Marlborough Downs.

Chalk is one of the youngest rock formations in the Swindon area and was formed in the Cretaceous period just 74 million years ago.

At the start of the Cretaceous Period, after the plug was pulled on the Jurassic Sea, the sea started to come back again.

A Megalosaurid dinosaur's foot found in Swindon's Kimmeridge Clay

It started off as a series of swampy lagoons that gradually became a proper marine sea and finally a pure tropical sea with no sand or mud.

Millions and millions of tiny alga blooms lived in the chalk seas of Swindon. They produced a calcium carbonate skeleton which, when they died, hardened and rained down on the seabed below.

Layer upon layer of these micro skeletons piled up until they were eventually compacted and hardened to form chalk.

Ideal as arable land the Chalk slopes proved far more profitable than the low lying clay valleys and large prosperous communities like Chiselden started springing up that are still around today.

Looking across to the left you can also see the Ridgeway which is possibly the oldest road in Europe. Stone Age man walked along its route long before the likes of Stonehenge came into being and even before Britain was an Island. It is the oldest surviving relic from our human past.

...walk for quarter of a mile until you reach a footpath that runs under the Old Town Rail Path. Take the steps, on the right, down to the path and turn right. Walk up the hill towards Westlecot Road. Walk along Westlecot Road for a quarter of a mile until you reach Town Gardens. Turn left into The Quarries just before the entrance to Town Gardens.