Thurstaston Common
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- Location map: 53°21’18"N, 3°8’6"W
- Streetmap: SJ245851
Thurstaston Common is an area of common land with almost 250 acres of parklands, wood and heath between Frankby and Thurstaston, on the Wirral Peninsula of Cheshire. The common is jointly owned by National Trust and the local council. Royden Country Park is nearby and offers additional facilities.
The Common is also designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest[1] and a Local Nature Reserve.
From the top of Thurstaston Hill, which reaches 298 feet above sea level (remarkable elevation for the Wirral) there are views of the Dee Estuary (itself an SSSI) and over the Dee to the Clwydian Hills of Denbighshire.
The area is popular with walkers and families.
"Thor's Stone"
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Thurstaston Hill is the location of Thor's Stone, a large sandstone outcrop and a place of romantic legend. In the 19th century it was supposed that early Viking settlers may have held religious ceremonies here. A visit to the site by members of the British Archaeological Association in 1888 heard an account by Rev. A. E. P. Gray, rector of Wallasey, that the 'Thor Stone' was also known in the locality as 'Fair Maiden's Hall' and that children were "in the habit of coming once a year to dance around the stone".[2]
This part of Wirral was certainly part of a Norse colony centred on Thingwall in the 10th and 11th centuries. However, geologists and historians now think that the rock is a natural formation similar to a tor, arising from periglacial weathering of the sandstone, which was later exploited by quarrymen in the 18th and 19th centuries.[3]
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Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Thurstaston Common) |
References
- ↑ SSSI listing and designation for Thurstaston Common
- ↑ Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 1888
- ↑ Stephen J. Roberts, A History of Wirral, 2002, ISBN 978-1-86077-512-3