2 ST. WEONARDS DISTRICT. 



GEOLOGY. — The St. Weonards district is composed of beds of 

 the Cornstone series of the Old Eed Sandstone. The Cornstone 

 deposits of the great series of rocks known as the Old Eed Sandstone, 

 or Devonian system of Geologists, commence low in the Old Red 

 deposits as thin Cornstones, or impure concretions of lime and marl, 

 interstratificd with red, yellowish, and white coloured sandstones and 

 "beds of clay and marl. 



The lowest bands may be seen at Ledbury tunnel, where they pass 

 downwards into the Downton sandstone and upper Ludlow shales, 

 and upwards into red marls, grey sandstones, and marly impure 

 cornstones, Avhich constitute the lower Old Eed sandstone of Here- 

 fordshire and Monmouthshire. 



Sub-crystalline masses of impure limestone, vulgarly called "corn- 

 stones," occur some hrmdreds of feet higher in the Old Eed rocks of 

 Herefordshire than the calcareous bands of the lower deposits above 

 mentioned. They are quarried at Ivilpcck, north of the St. "Weonards 

 district, and again at Kentchurch and below Orcop Hill, where, in 

 comjjany with my friend Mr. Lingwood, I obtained fragments 

 of the Old Eed fish Pteraspis, and Cephalaspis. The hills of 

 Kentchurch Park, Saddlebow, Eowlstone, and Orcop, are capped 

 with grey sandstones and marls, which I look upon as the summit of 

 the cornstone series, and which pass upwards on the Skyrrid, near 

 Abergavenny, in the Black Mountains, the Blorenge, Sugar Loaf, 

 Daren, and Pen-Cerrig-Calch into the brownstones, marls, and 

 chocolate coloured sandstones, Avhich, with the overlying conglomerate 

 and yellow sandstone, constitute the upper Old Eed. At Orcop, 

 Saddlebow, and Kentchurch hills, the brownstone series are denuded, 

 and I believe but just denuded. The southern division of the 

 St. Weonards district, at Gannerew, passes into a district most inter- 

 esting to the geologist, and revealing a most complicated geological 

 history. 



The geologist who would comprehend the wondrous physical 

 geology of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, will soon learn the 

 necessity of visiting many distant hills and rolling vales before he 

 can hope to understand the geology of a single district of the land of 

 the Old Eed. It must suffice here to remark that the rocks of the 

 Old Eed that underlie the Carboniferous limestone of the Great 

 l^oward and Symonds's Yat, a little south of Gannerew and Whit- 



