A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



often left as uncultivated heathland, as for instance in the case of Sutton 



Park. 



The Upper Sandstone overlies the Pebble Beds and extends through 

 Birmingham towards Lichfield. It is excellently exposed in some large 

 excavations near the Great Western railway near Hockley station; it 

 consists of soft, fine-grained, bright-red sandstone, without pebbles, and is 

 extensively dug for moulding-sand. East of the Birmingham district 

 this subdivision is unknown. 



The Lower Keuper Sandstone forms an elevated ridge of ground 

 extending from Birmingham through Erdington to Sutton Coldfield. It 

 reappears around the north of the Warwickshire coalfield at Tamworth 

 and Warton, and extends north-eastwards thence past Newton Regis 

 towards Leicestershire. Farther south it forms an almost continuous 

 fringe to the Carboniferous and ' Permian ' rocks from Nuneaton to 

 Warwick, and thence past Berkswell to Maxtoke. The rocks consist of 

 red, brown and white sandstone with bands of red marl. A dull-red 

 pebbly sandstone is exposed by the canal side at Gravelly Hill, north- 

 east of Birmingham ; and the upper beds occur at Reddicap Hill near 

 Sutton Coldfield. Calcareous breccias are recorded by Mr. Howell l as 

 occurring near Tamworth. White sandstone is found at Maxtoke and 

 Meriden Hall and is traceable towards Kenilworth. Mr. Fox-Strangways * 

 observes that near Merevale some of the beds are soft and unconsolidated 

 and are dug for sand. Sandstones have been quarried at Warton and 

 Seckington, and in the village of Newton Regis they are exposed near 

 the church. Sections at Austrey show the upward passage of the 

 highest sandstones into the lowest beds of the Keuper Marl subdivision. 

 South of Nuneaton the unconformable relation of the Keuper to the 

 Cambrian was well shown in a large quarry at Marston Jabet red marl 

 and white sandstones with a conglomeratic base resting horizontally on 

 the Stockingford Shales with intruded diorite, dipping east at 1 5. Near 

 Warwick the beds have been quarried for building stone and have 

 yielded a number of footprints, bones, and teeth of the extinct amphibia 

 Labyrinthodon and Mastodonsaurus ; their footprints are five-toed. Lizard- 

 like reptiles are represented by Hyperodapedon ; dinosaurs by Thecodonto- 

 saurus, the footprints of which are three-toed. A fine collection of these 

 fossils is to be seen in the Warwick Museum. 3 



The Lower Keuper Sandstones above described pass upwards, with- 

 out any break, into the Keuper Marls, which attain a great thickness 

 and spread over the greater part of central Warwickshire. The beds 

 consist of red marls and shales frequently mottled and banded of a green 

 colour. Thin seams of gypsum are occasionally met with ; one has been 

 worked at Spernall north of Alcester. Salt beds in the marls have long 

 yielded the brine springs of Droitwich (in Worcestershire). 



One or more well marked bands of grey sandstone, the Upper 



1 ' Warwickshire Coalfield,' p. 38. * ' Geol. of Atherstone,' p. 34. 



1 See Huxley, Quart. Joum. Geol. See. xxv. (1869), 13 8 f and xxvi. (1870), 32; also Miall, ibid. 

 xxx. (1874), 4'7- 



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