Dewars Farm Quarry

51°55′08″N 1°13′01″W / 51.919°N 1.217°W / 51.919; -1.217 Dewars Farm Quarry is a limestone quarry in Oxfordshire, England, between Ardley and Middleton Stoney in which extensive tracks of dinosaur footprints were found in 2024. The quarry excavates a layer of limestone which is crushed and graded for use as construction aggregate. The underlying layer contains the footprints, which were formed in mudflats during the Middle Jurassic.[1][2] The tracks are similar to the nearby Ardley Trackways which were found in 1997.[1][2]

A track found in summer 2025, 220 m (720 ft) long, has been described as "one of the longest trackways found anywhere in the world".[3] It shows the tracks of a large sauropod dinosaur, "probably Cetiosaurus", moving at about 2 metres per second (6.6 ft/s), a speed similar to a human walking fast.[3] Megalosaurus prints were also found. The tracks were probably all made over a period of weeks.[3]

At the time the prints were made, the site was much closer to the equator and covered with a shallow tropical sea. The quarry floor has many tiny shells of sea creatures; an almost complete tiny sea urchin was found.[3]

An excavation and investigation by paleontologists was featured in January 2025 in Alice Roberts' television series Digging for Britain.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ a b Rebecca Morelle; Alison Francis (2 January 2025), UK's biggest ever dinosaur footprint site unearthed, BBC
  2. ^ a b Kirsty Marie Edgar; Duncan Murdock (23 January 2025), "How we uncovered the UK's biggest site of dinosaur tracks in a quarry in Oxfordshire", The Conversation
  3. ^ a b c d Morelle, Rebecca; Francis, Alison; Church, Kevin (14 October 2025). "In the footsteps of giants - BBC News". News. BBC. Includes images and video
  4. ^ "Uncovering Oxfordshire's 'dinosaur highway'". oumnh.ox.ac.uk. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. 2025. Retrieved 14 October 2025.
  5. ^ "Digging for Britain, Series 12, Dinosaur Highway and Roman Sauna". BBC. 8 January 2025. Retrieved 14 October 2025.
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