1938 
It was an old tale, but well told and always interesting—Dear, good, brave, 
loving Lady Brilliana! ‘‘ Most noble lady and Phcenix of women,” as she was 
called “‘ most faithfull and affectionat wife and mother,” as she signed herself in 
scores of letters. She has made this quiet corner of the country classic ground, 
and if it had ever struck her to spell the same word twice alike, her wonderful 
orthography might have been counted classic English to day. It was a real 
pleasure to be shown her original letters, so teeming with Jove, and faith, and 
courage, and read them a little through the hole that made the “ 
sense. But the word ‘‘ forward ” from a voice that no member of the club disobeys, 
drew the members to the Church close by. Rebuilt when it was, it is of course a 
debased classical type, but most curious withal. Its oaken roof is carried on 
nonsense’ into 
columns with bits of real cornice, all of oak, standing up against the walls, very 
much like the plainer work in the church at Vowchurch in the Golden Valley, 
which the Club visited a few weeks since. There isa tradition that this was the 
old oak roof of the Castle Hall, but there are many similar traditions, and one 
wonders how the transplanted roofs came to fit in their new places so well! There 
is, however, a date on it somewhere, and perhaps the matter can be made sure. 
A couple of good early floor tiles found at the castle, and carefully preserved, may 
have belonged to the castle chapel or to this church. 
Luncheon had been most kindly and unexpectedly provided for the members, 
and in this interval may be told the best botanical “find” of the day. It was 
just where one would wish it tobe. Dr. Chapman gathered from the ruins of the 
castle, Dianthus plumarius, the first time this pretty pink has been found in 
Herefordshire, although it grows on some Shropshire ruins, and the locality 
would not be so openly given now if it were not luckily in a situation that will 
save it from extermination. To the consternation of some gentlemen, pleasantly 
lingering at the hospitable table, the cry of ‘‘ Forward” was again heard from 
that tiresome martinet of punctuality, and the road was taken for Upper Pedwar- 
dine to visit the Tremadoc shales. The road has been cut through thin soft beds 
of sandstone standing almost on edge, which were a puzzle to geologists, until the 
Rey. Wm. Symonds found in them the fossil Dictyonema sociale, which deter- 
mined the particular strata of rocks to which they belong, here tilted up by the 
great fault which runs through the park of Brampton Bryan. Dr. Callaway has 
studied these strata and proved them to be very much older than had before been 
supposed. In his absence the Rev. J. D. La Touche thus told of his work at the 
request of the President. 
Murchison and the Geological Survey had described all the area East and 
South of the Longmynds as representing a regular succession of strata from the 
Caradoc to the coal measures on the Clee Hill, never suspecting that there was 
any considerable break in the series. A few years since Dr. Callaway began his 
researches near Wellington, and was surprised at the resemblance of the fossils 
found at Shineton to those in what are called the Tremadoc beds. The Tre- 
madoc succeed the Lingula flags of Wales and underlie great deposits of the 
Arenig, the Llandeilo, the Caradoc, &c., and therefore their proper position would 
be hundreds or even thousands of feet below the rock with which they are found 
