‘Frustrating work’: Tourists defile World Heritage landmark with 10,000 coins, forcing 200-hour cleanup
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Tourists really put in their two, er 10,000, cents.
Disrespectful tourists inserted thousands of coins into a World Heritage Site in the UK, forcing bedraggled conservationists to conduct a time-consuming cleanup.
“Approximately 200 man-hours were spent on the project,” Dr. Cliff Henry, National Trust nature engagement officer, told Jam Press of the unwanted donations.
More than 44 pounds of coin — totaling around 10,000 pieces — were removed from the Giant’s Causeway, a natural landmark in County Antrim, Ireland, that’s comprised of over 40,000 basalt columns. These were molded over 60 million years ago, when molten lava seeped down into crevices in Earth before cooling, contracting and fragmenting into these otherworldly shapes.
While these iconic formations have stood the test of time, they were no match for the waves of”tourons,” who have been hammering sheckles into the rocks for presumed good luck — like a terrestrial wishing well.
Visitors have been jamming coins into the Causeway for years, but the behavior has ramped up recently, prompting fears that they could cause serious damage.
The damp, salty conditions corrode the metal, causing it to expand inside the cracks and put a strain on the surrounding stone.
Following a damning report from the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, the National Trust began their ambitious coin collection project, even enlisting specialist stonemason Nathan Morrow to remove the caustic currency sans causing more damage.
He reportedly used pliers to collect the coins from the rock’s edge while a gripping tool was required for some of the more deeply-wedged denominations.
The work was painstaking, with some of the loose change “popping out” easily while other pieces took more than 20 minutes to extract.
“It was fiddly work, it was frustrating work,” Dr. Henry told the BBC while detailing Morrow’s unenviable task. “Some coins were quite stuck. He found if he got to move them at all, if he worked them forward and back, eventually he would be able to get them out.”
The official compared the situation to a penny arcade, where inserting new coins pushes older ones further back.
But unlike with a coin game winner, the retrieval team didn’t hit the jackpot.
“The coins corrode so quickly in the salty, damp conditions at the Causeway that it becomes impossible to detect what currency it was, never mind the date on it after just a few years,” said Henry. “The oldest coin that I have seen was dated 1999, but may have been placed much later than that year.
He added, “Only about 5% of the coins extracted are usable currency; the rest are either too bent or too corroded.”
The official said that 95% of the haul were either UK pounds or Euros, while the second most common currency was the US dollar.
Despite the monumental cleanup campaign, which ended in June, many coins were ultimately too difficult to extract both because of their depth and degree of corrosion.
“There are several thousand coins still wedged in the joints,” lamented Henry. “Others are too badly rusted to get them to move without causing significant damage to the stones. Better left to corrode away in time.”
To make matters worse, visitors have begun their desecrating contributions anew with Henry claiming that he removed another 42 coins last month.
The Trust has since posted warning signs imploring sightseers not to jam and more money into the rocks.
“Please don’t put these coins in,” pleaded Henry. “If you want to do something with your coin, stick it in the charity box and we can use that money for good purposes.
The organization is mulling a way to turn their coin collection into an exhibit to raise awareness of their plight.