40 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 19 lo 



rock-steps, and associated phenomena, are eloquent testimony 

 of a by-gone glacial episode. 



COTTESWOLD HILLS 



Having explained the probable origin of certain cwms in 

 Snowdonia, and the more opened-out amphitheatral hollows in 

 the Brecons, we now come to one of the main objects of this 

 paper, namely, to suggest that certain semi-circular combs in 

 the Cotteswold Hills may have had a somewhat similar history. 

 One of the most conspicuous of these semi-circular combs is 

 that at Charlton Common — the eastern portion of the hill-mass 

 of which Leckhampton Hill is the western. 



Separating the Charlton-Common comb from others less 

 noticeable on either side, are the remains of what, in pre- 

 Glacial times, may well have been more massive round-backed 

 spurs. Now, however, they are in parts sharpened, dislocated 

 and dissected. In the hollows, and more particularly about 

 the place where the steeper scarp of Inferior Oohte gives place 

 to the gentler slope of the Upper-Lias clay, are noticeable belts 

 of small-sized gravel, best described as "granular." Somewhat 

 similar, but often coarser gravel, forms long drawn-out mounds 

 beyond, and in the Charlton comb they trail converging-wise 

 down the hollow. Above these belts of more granular gravel 

 is relatively angular debris that has fallen in later times from 

 the steep hmestone-cliffs above, and is mixed now with 

 quarry-spoil. 



The Inferior Oolite is thickest on the sides of the main 

 escarpment that roughly trends, first from north-east to 

 south-west, and then southwards from Wotton-under-Edge to 

 Bath. It is noticeable that all the amphitheatral hollows in 

 this oft-incised north-east and south-west-aligned portion, face 

 between north-west and north-east — the best-formed usually 

 facing due north. And it is in such northerly or north-easterly- 

 directed hollows that the gravel-deposits are most in evidence, 

 for example, on Stinchcombe Hill, in the Dursley Valley under 

 Break-Heart Hill, at Haresfield, in Witcombe Woods, and at 

 Charlton Common. 



While such amphitheatral combs and gravel-deposits are 

 of frequent occurrence respectively in and on the hill-sides 



