SANDSTONE AMMONITE

This is one of three large ammonites I have found in my life and the only one still in my possession.

The other two were both chalk ammonites and both found on the South Downs above Steyning in Sussex. The first, when I was at school, I found with a boy named Taws. We were clambering up the face of the smaller chalk pit near our boarding school when we noticed a curved outcrop of chalk that looked promising. Using our geological hammers, we spent hours hacking out this huge lump of chalk and somehow getting it down the cliff. The moment I remember so vividly was when we used a hammer and a metal wedge on the top of the lump and the whole top part came away to reveal this amazing ammonite form (no shell was remaining, as far as I remember). Somehow we manhandled back all the way down the hill to school and showed it to our geography treacher with great excitement. I believe it ended up in the school collection.

The second chalk anmonite I discovered many years later in the bigger chalk pit outside Steyning, which used at one point to be used industrially. There were still a few rusting sheds and fences left and this buge bowl of jumbled up chunks of chalk, which was a great place to go exploring. There had been a sharp frost and many of the chalk lumps were shattered. I was just going along at random, turning things over, and grabbed this lump to move it. The whole top came way as before and there was another huge chalk ammonite, which again I manhandled down the hill, this time back to my family house.

The ammonite pictured is a sandstone one on which there is quite a lot of the original shell intact in the centre. This I found just lying in a field just near where we were living in Castle Cary in Somerset. The patch of field looked very ancient and there were lots of interesting-looking rocks. This ammonite was literally there for all to see. One of the most exciting finds of my life.