The rocks of the Beaumont park area are Upper Carboniferous (Yeadonian) in age, so they are about 315 million years old.
These rocks were laid down in deltas on the edge of a shallow sea, with mountains to the north and south. Sands and muds were deposited by rivers in shallow water. Because the continent was close to the equator, the climate was warm and wet so that tropical rain forest flourished. Dead plant material became trapped in stagnant swamps between river channels. Over geological time it was buried by muds and sands as the rivers in the delta changed position and built up more deposits.
After the sediments were formed close to sea-
Beaumont Park
A Walk around Beaumont Park, Huddersfield, to look at rocks and landscapes
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Grid Reference for gate house
SE 126 145
The sandstones and mudstones form alternating layers which gives the Yorkshire landscape its distinctive Rock appearance. The sandstones are more resistant than the mudstones and form the upland moors such as Wessenden Moor and Holme Moss. The mudstones are less resistant and are weathered and eroded more easily, so are usually only exposed in the cloughs or valleys. This pattern of erosion on the sandstones and mudstones is common and gives West Yorkshire its characteristic landscapes.
Crosland Moor is underlain by a sandstone called the Rough Rock, which has been quarried here for many centuries. The Rough Rock is a thick bed of sandstone which forms many gently sloping plateaux in the Huddersfield and Halifax areas. It can be worked into an excellent building stone so has been widely quarried throughout West Yorkshire.
Slopes below the disused railway cutting, right down to the River Holme, are a good example of landslip topography, as the more resistant Rough Rock slides over the less resistant shales at the base of the slope.