A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



described by Beesley. 1 They consist of shales with bands and nodules 

 of limestone, and contain the zone ammonites A. armatus, A. jamesoni 

 and A. ibex, as well as numerous belemnites, the dart-like internal hard 

 part of a cuttle-fish. 



Near Rugby the lowest beds of the Lower Lias were cut through 

 by the Birmingham railway west of Church Lawford, and appear to 

 consist of paper-shales instead of the usual limestones. But an excellent 

 section of some 70 feet of the overlying limestones and clays belong- 

 ing to the zones of A. angulatus and A. bucklandi is afforded by the 

 Victoria quarry about a mile north-west of Rugby ; the beds which are 

 worked for blue lias lime and cement have yielded remains of saurians, 

 with ammonites, lamellibranch shells and crinoids. 2 In a pit north of 

 Newbold Grange the beds are folded up into a sharp saddle or anticline. 

 Several brickyards about Rugby and Hill Moreton afford sections of 

 higher divisions with A. semicostatus, A. brevispina, etc. ; and a deep 

 well south-east of Rugby proved 458 feet of Lower Lias beds. 



The two outlying patches of Rhaetic and Lias beds south-west of 

 Henley-in-Arden and also that at Knowle have yielded various character- 

 istic fossils, and the limestones were formerly worked. Insect limestones 

 are present, and Brodie 3 records that at Knowle the ' firestones ' and 

 ' guinea bed ' were formerly quarried by a shaft and yielded the usual 

 fossils, of which may be mentioned A . planorbis, Ostrea tiassica, and bones 

 of Ichthyosaurus. 



By the close of the Lower Lias period the sea had become shallower, 

 and we find that much sandy matter was deposited ; this forms in part 

 the Middle Lias. These beds consist of a lower series of bluish-grey 

 micaceous marls and clays and laminated calcareous sands and clays with 

 layers of limestone and calcareous sandstone ; these softer beds are over- 

 lain by a rocky band of tough iron-shot and earthy limestone known as 

 the Marlstone. 4 The latter especially is rich in fossils, and Ammonites 

 spinatus and A. margaritatus characterize the rock, the former being 

 restricted to the higher beds. In addition to these ammonites there are 

 several species of belemnites, a number of lamellibranchs, and the star- 

 fish-like Ophioderma egertoni and O. milleri. 



The Middle Lias enters the south-western edge of the county near 

 Chipping Campden, where the Marlstone has been quarried at various 

 points round Ebrington Hill ; the whole group there attains a thickness 

 of about 150 feet. In the direction of Stow-on-the-Wold however this 

 becomes reduced, and the bold escarpment gradually disappears. 6 It 

 reappears however at Little Compton in the extreme south of the county, 

 and thence can be followed north-eastwards towards Edge Hill. Sections 

 in the Middle Lias were opened up during the construction of the 

 tunnel on the Banbury and Cheltenham railway north of Chipping 



' Proc. Warwickshire Nat. Club (1877), p. i. Woodward, op. cit. p. 163. 



Quart Journ. Gtol. Soc. xxi. (1865), 159 ; also xxx. (1874), 746. 



Woodward, op. cit. p. 185. 

 * Howell in Hull's Geol. of Cheltenham,' Mem. Geol. Survey, p. 19. 



20 



