Forming the Landscape - Aase y Cheer

The Calf, Chicken Rock and the upland spine of the Isle of Man are part of the rock formations which underlie both the Mountains of Mourne in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. About 410 million years ago, two great landmasses bordering a sea called the Iapetus Ocean collided. The bed of this ancient sea was pushed upwards to form a mountain range, and today evidence of this can still be seen in the buckled rock layers of the Sugarloaf and at the Chasms.

About ten thousand years ago great sheets of ice covered what are now the Isle of Man and the Calf. As they retreated, these ice sheets deposited sediments and rock debris which later formed the layers of soil on the Calf and the Meayll peninsula. Later still, people made their own impression on the landscape as farmers sought to bring order to the countryside with fields and field boundaries.

Please see the Visitor Information page for details of opening hours.