BROMYARD DISTRICT. 11 



Old Red rocks, aiid are far more famed for cider than fossils. The 



land of the Old Eed is, however, infinitely superior to the poor 

 washy clays of the Silurian deposits. 



NO. 5. THE BROJ^IYAED DISTEICT. 



This district, lying at the extreme N.E. point of the county of 

 Hereford, is bounded on the N. and I^.E. by the county of Worcester, 

 the line of separation between the counties being exceedingly irreg- 

 ular and unnatural. 



From the borders of "Worcestershire to the intersection of the 

 Ledbury and Bromyard road, near Castle Frome, the southern 

 boundary is formed by the Worcester and Hereford turnpike road. 

 From Castle Frome the western boundary is marked by the turnpiko 

 road northward to a point near Bromyard, whence, taking a more 

 westerly direction to Bredenbury and Grendon Bishop, it proceeds 

 along the line of watershed, and reaches the borders of Worcester- 

 shire near Bockleton. The western part of the tract thus defined is 

 drained by the Frome : the eastern by the Teme and its tributary 

 brooks. 



This district is in one respect of great botanical interest, for it is 

 the only part, not only of Herefordshire, but also of Britain, in 

 which the curious plant Epipogium aphyllum, Sw., has been found. 

 This plant is rare and of very uncertain occurrence even in these 

 parts of the continent of Europe which have long been known to 

 produce it. 



GEOLOGY. — The Bromyard district consists entirely of lower 

 Old Eed clays and marls, with hills of cornstones and sandstones, as 

 at Castle Frome and Bishop's Frome. There are certain quarries 

 between Acton Beauchamp and Castle Frome highly fossiliferous. 

 The rock consists of thin cornstones interstratified with clays and 

 thin-bedded sandstones. One quarry, situate about a mile from 

 the great quarry, at Eidgeway Cross, near Stifford Bridge, is fuU 

 of fossiliferous remains, the plates, heads, and tails of those remark- 

 able Old Eed fish, the Pteraspis, and Cephalaspis. Mr. Gill, the 

 overseer of the Eidgeway quarries, generally possesses some good 

 specimens of the heads and plates of Cephalaspis LyeUii, . Pteraspis 



