Swindon couple discovers incredible Jurassic era fossil haul in farmer's field

This is the third fossil haul from Swindon's Neville and Sally Hollingworth, who had previously discovered two 'once-in-a-lifetime' finds in the last two years.

A fish fossil with its eyeball intact photo: Dean Lomax

In July 2021, news broke of the Moredon couple using Google Earth to unearth one of the largest collections of rare marine fossils, known as Crinoids, found anywhere in the UK at a site in Wiltshire. 

Read: Swindon couple discover Jurassic fossils in Wiltshire thanks to Google Earth.

Later that year, the part-time fossil hunters discovered one of the most extraordinary archaeological finds in history when they discovered preserved fossils of mammoths in a quarry to the north of Swindon, which went on to be the subject of a David Attenborough-fronted documentary. 

Read: Swindon couple unearth five 220,000-year-old ice-age mammoths at site near town.

Contained within their latest find from the Court Farm, Kings Stanley, location are 183-million-year-old fossils of fish, ancient marine reptiles, squids and rare insects and come from a time when this part of the country was deep underwater. 

Sally and Neville explained: “These fossils come from the Early Jurassic, specifically a time called the Toarcian. The clay layers exposed at this site near Stroud have yielded a significant number of well-preserved marine vertebrate fossils that are comparable to the famous and exquisitely preserved similar fauna of the Strawberry Bank Lagerstätte from Ilminster, Somerset – a prehistoric site of exceptional fossil preservation.

"Excavations at Kings Stanley over the last week have revealed a rich source of fossil material, particularly from a rare layer of rock that has not been exposed since the late 19th Century.”

The dig team photo: Nigel Larkin

After Neville and Sally discovered the site, a team of eight scientists spent 4 days with a digger clearing a stretch of around 80 metres of a grassy bank, digging out several hundred limestone nodules, splitting them by hand and logging the fossils they contained on a database prior to preparation and conservation.

Among the best finds, some of which will be donated to the local Museum in the Park, Stroud were several fossil fish with excellent details of their scales, fins and even their eyeballs. One of the most impressive discoveries was a three-dimensional preserved fish head.

One of the impressively preserved fossils photo: Dean Lomax

One of the team members, Alexia Clark, who is the museum’s Documentation and Collections Officer said: “We’re excited to expand our knowledge of the geology of the Stroud District and we are looking forward to a time when we can share these amazing finds with our members and visitors."