Fossil finds

Sometimes I can just admire a thing I don't know for its beauty. But sometimes, most times, I need to know....
A journey down the ra bit hole into the complex world of geology. Fortunately a knowledgeable group of fellow professionals and the a ility to ping images around the world meant that I was able to access some the good side of what Facebook has to offer, and via one of those wierd Kevin Bacon-esque 'five steps of separation' type things I got the following advice from a professional geologist.
Sunbiggin is in the middle of a large area of Lower Carboniferous rocks and these finds look like they might be rather weathered fossil corals in limestone, exposjre to the air contributing to the strikingly different colour. Corals are quite common in rocks of this age (about 350 million years old) and the polygonal example looks like a colonial form called Michelinia. The walls of each individual coral are shared (hence colonial) and they can build up quite large, bun-shaped, solid structures. If the coral has been slightly silicified it will tend to be more resistant than the limestone and protrude a bit as it weathers.
The swirl-like structure looks like another coral possibly from the type. It is also a colonial coral, and also found in the lower carboniferous. An alternative theory would be for it to be a Hiyalite fossil, they were small colony creatures that made chains. They're common in much older rocks (e.g. Silurian rocks about 430 million years old) and I don't know whether they (or their descendants) survived into Lower Carboniferous times, but as this is displaced stone used to make a dry stone wall, and the nearby Howgills and the Shap intrusion are both much older, it can't be discounted.

Whilst all of the above seems very plausible I'm still fascinated how it would survive in 3D wrapped around the 90° angle of the stone*. One solid amateur suggested it might actually be the remains of very early matting that has petrified. This area has some very old settlement remains, and often dwellings were constructed frim the loose blocks that proliferate here and then, millennia later the ruins used to build walls like these.

My own lichen knowledge dated some of this wall to a relatively young 150-200 years.

I guess sometimes we're just not meant to know.

*fascinating. Even as I was posting this I recieved a reply explain the the stone might well have formed through the corrol, enveloping in and we are just seeing the part that is exposed, but that the entire stone might be full of more of the coral.
Every day is a school day.