Making a fuss of Black Country fossils - and why it's important

Nestled in the heart of the Black Country is an internationally important geological site and a landscape 428 million years in the making.

Wren's Nest National Nature Reserve in Dudley is home to millions of fossils in its limestone-rich rocks and has been awarded several accolades to mark its significance.

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the rockface of Wren's Nest was located underwater all the way across the globe, south of the equator near what is now Brazil. Today, it is one of biggest natural assets of the Black Country.

As Wren's Nest now marks its 70th anniversary as a nature reserve, a year-long programme of events and activities is being launched to celebrate the site and highlight its important geology, wildlife, and mining heritage.

Paul Floyd, from the Friends of Wren's Nest group, has been working for more than 20 years to maintain and protect the area.

He told the BBC: "It is one of the best places certainly in the UK possibly in the world to find fossils."

Speaking about the year-long programme of events to celebrate the nature reserve, Floyd explained there were "fantastic plans in place" to renovate the site's existing warden's base as well as the visitor and education centre.

"We get students from all over the world, we get all sorts of ages," he said.

"And then they've got somewhere they can use as a base."

Graham Wharton is the keeper of geology for Dudley Council and says Wren's Nest has "the most beautifully preserved rock layers in the whole of the UK" with some of the most exceptional fossil preservation in the world.

He says this is due to them being built of the shells of the sea creatures from when the area was a shallow tropical sea.

"It's a pretty special place," he added.

Some of those fossils are visible within the rock, with Wharton pointing out the "Dudley Bug" which would have been hiding in the coral reef.

The "Dudley Bug" is an affectionate term for the species calymene blumenbachii which was a trilobite, otherwise known as extinct marine arthropods.

They were found so frequently in the area's mines that they became synonymous with the town and even featured on its coat of arms.

Wren's Nest rock faces were important to the Black Country becoming a big power in the Industrial Revolution.

Wharton said: "The landscape is the result of millions of tonnes of limestone being taken out of the ground and the limestone was found to be a magic ingredient that helped the iron masters to use coal as a fuel.

"It grabbed the impurities that were within the coal, like sulphur, floated those out and it lowered the overall melting temperature required to extract the iron from the iron ore.

"And it really was that golden key that unlocked the Industrial Revolution for the whole world really."

All of this history will be celebrated over the coming year through a series of events coordinated by the Friends of Wren's Nest, with the programme being officially launched on Saturday with an event at Dudley Archives and Local History Centre.

It also saw the launch of a new animated film by local filmmaker Leo Wright called the Dudley Bug, highlighting the reserve's fossil heritage to family audiences.

Plans for the new visitor centre and warden's facility were also shown at the event.

Dudley Council, with the support of the Friends of Wren's Nest, has submitted an application to the local planning authority to source external funding for the development.

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