One of the major problems of North Atlantic palaeogeographical development is the origin and source of the drainage system that deposited, during the Carboniferous, up to 5 km of clastic sediments across an east–west belt from western Ireland to western Poland. We present here results from U–Pb dating of detrital zircons In Namurian (mid-Carboniferous) fluvial elastics of northern England. These show a consistent and simple pattern with Carboniferous sandstones derived, in part, from active erosion of Archaean crystalline rocks possibly from western Greenland and/or Fennoscandanavia. Detritus recycled through the Caledonian is also represented but the proportion recycled through pre-existing sedimentary rocks, as implied by rounded zircon grains, is far smaller than expected.