| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 | |
  Location within Somerset | |
| Area of Search | Somerset |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | ST678213 |
| Coordinates | 50°59′24″N2°27′36″W / 50.9901°N 2.4601°W Coordinates: 50°59′24″N2°27′36″W / 50.9901°N 2.4601°W |
| Interest | Geological |
| Area | 1.3 hectares (0.013 km2; 0.0050 sq mi) |
| Notification | 1993 |
| Natural England website | |
Laycock Railway Cutting (grid reference ST678213 ) is a 1.3 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Milborne Port in Somerset, notified in 1993. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.
The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, distinct from latitude and longitude. It is often called British National Grid (BNG).
The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides, or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.
Milborne Port is a village, electoral ward and civil parish in Somerset, England, east of Sherborne, and in the South Somerset district. It has a population of 2,802. The parish includes the hamlets of Milborne Wick, Kingsbury Regis and Stowell.
Laycock Railway Cutting is the best single exposure of the Bathonian ’Fuller's Earth Rock’ in South Somerset. Ammonites indicating the Morrisi and Subcontractus zones of the Middle Bathonian are frequent. Ammonites are generally extremely rare at this level in Britain and their presence at Laycock is of international stratigraphic importance. The combination of features of both litho- and chrono-stratigraphical importance make Laycock Railway Cutting a key British Bathonian locality.
In the geologic timescale the Bathonian is an age and stage of the Middle Jurassic. It lasted from approximately 168.3 Ma to around 166.1 Ma. The Bathonian age succeeds the Bajocian age and precedes the Callovian age.
