Museum Musings – Royston Tapestry
Once upon a time, 300 million years ago to be more precise, there was a particle of sand called Sandie who was surrounded by millions of other sand particles. One day, Sandie became trapped by sand building up overhead. Being sand, there wasn’t much Sandie could do about this, except sit there as more sand piled on top. Then more sand piled on top of that until a transformation took place! All the squashed sand turned to stone – sandstone!
Then an ice age struck with parts of the UK covered in an ice layer that was kilometres thick. Sandie, all of a sudden (which is very slow in geological terms) was being shoved along with a torrent of thick ice!
Finally, the ice melted away and Sandie took in the new surroundings. 
It turns out Sandie had travelled over 120 miles from Derbyshire or Yorkshire (Sandie wasn’t too sure) all the way to Royston! Sandie was a particle of sand that is now a part of the Royse Stone. That big stone that sits at the bottom of Royston High Street.
The stone is known as a “glacial erratic”. The “glacial” because it was moved by ice, the “erratic” is from the Latin “errare”, meaning to wander.
Since being in Royston, the stone has found itself in a few different locations and has even been yarn bombed! I bet all those woollies would have come in handy during that ice age!
