VOL. XVII. (i) EXCURSION— NAILSWORTH 13 



HALF-DAY EXCURSION TO NAILSWORTH, AVENING AND 

 MINCHINHAMPTON 



Saturday, June 5th, 1909 



Directors : A. E. Smith, E. North am Witchell and E. T. Paris 



(Report by L. Richardson and W. Thompson) 



The Members arrived at Nailsworth Station at 2.38 p.m. Those present 

 included: Mr W. R. Carles {Vice-President), Messrs F. H. Bretherton, A. 

 Cockshott, S. J. Coley, F. J. Cullis, G. M. Currie. Charles Curtis, J. M. CoUett, 

 J. M. Dixon, O. H. Fowler, G. W. Hedley, J. N. Hobbs, M. H. Medland, G. 

 P. Milnes, H. E. Norris, J. W. Skinner, Vincent A. Smith, A. J. Stephens, 

 Col. E. C. Dowse, Surgeon-Major I. Newton, Dep. Surg.-Gen. G. A. Watson, 

 E. T. Paris [Hon. Assistant-Secretary), etc. 



The deepest part of the Nailsworth Valley is in the blue Upper Lias clay, 

 which was exposed when the new church was built, and is frequently laid 

 bare when drainage works are in process of construction. Here and there, as 

 at Dunkirk Mills, about half-a-mile out of Nailsworth on the Woodchester 

 Road,' are hollows in the clay -floor, in which occur gravel and occasional 

 peat-beds, in one of which the remains of beaver have been found. Above 

 the Upper-Lias clays are the Upper- Lias or Cotteswold Sands capped with the 

 Cephalopod-Bed, which has been exposed in Mr A. E. Smith's garden. 2 To 

 the Cephalopod-Bed succeeds the Inferior Oolite — in this neighbourhood com- 

 prising the subdivisions, Scissum-'Beds, Lower Limestone, Pea-Grit, Lower 

 Freestone, Bradfordensis-Beds, Upper Trigonia-Gnt, Clypeus-Grit, and White 

 Oolite. 



Considerable portions of Nailsworth are built upon terrace-like gravel- 

 'beds, and from a clayey bed in the gravel exposed in the pit on the Bath 

 Road, fresh-water shells have been collected. 3 



Leaving Nailsworth Station, the Members drove along the Avening Road, 

 seeing near Longfords Lake, the section of Pea-Grit beds from which Edwin 

 Witchell obtained so many specimens of Nerincsa new to science, and the old 

 quarries where the Lower Freestone has been mined. 



At Avening, the Church was visited under the guidance of Mr A. 

 E. Smith (text-figure i).4 The village is situated mainly upon the Fullers' 

 Earth, and the Great Oolite has been quarried in the bank to the south. 



Crossing the Valley, the Members ascended the hill, and saw the top- 

 portion of the Great Oolite in a quarry in a field by the road-side, with 

 a most interesting Rhynchonella-'Bed, correlative with that at Tiltups End 

 (about a mile-and-a-half to the south of Nailsworth) above. 5 This Rhyn- 

 chonella-'Bed, which is a marly clay, in which Rhynchonella obsoleta abounds, 

 also contains Chlamys vagans, Nerincsa sp., and Ostrea sp. 



At the entrance to Gatcombe Park, Major Ricardo met the party, and 

 conducted them to the long tumulus, ^ which is visible from the road. The 

 tumulus was opened in 1870 by Canon Lysons, but the portion that is of 



1 J. Lycett, "The Cotteswold Hills" (1857), p. 116. 



2 Proc. Cotteswold Nat. F. C, vol. xiii., pt. i {1899), p. 9. 



3 Idem, p. 9. 



4 Vide idem p. 10. 



5 Idem, vol. xvi., pt. i (1907), pp. 39, 40. 



6 Idem, vol. v., pt. 3 for 1870 (1871), pp. 279, 280. 



