CHAPTER TWO 



THE SOILS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE 

 By H. H. Nicholson, m.a., and F. Hanley, m.a. 



WITHIN THE COMPARATIVELY LIMITED AREA OF 

 Cambridgeshire, circumstances have combined to produce a 

 large variety of soil conditions." To begin with, the Cretaceous 

 and Upper Jurassic outcrops from the Upper Chalk doMoi to the Oxford 

 Clay provide a goodly range of parent materials, and superimposed upon 

 these are large areas of drift deposits of all sorts, from recent Alluvium to 

 Glacial Gravel (see Figs. 4 and 29). Some of these drift deposits are so thin 

 and diffuse as to escape notice in the Drift Maps but they are of consider- 

 able importance from the soil point of view. Furthermore, the topography 

 of the area varies from the comparatively high liills of the Chalk escarp- 

 ment to the flat expanses of Fenland, so that every type of drainage con- 

 dition is encountered. The types of soil parent material and the varying 

 drainage conditions are summarised in the adjoining table. 



While this table summarises drainage conditions from the point of view 

 of soil formation and leaching, it does not fully depict land-drainage 

 conditions. The greater part of the Fenland is dependent on artificial 

 drainage and the use of pumps to keep the water table at a reasonable 

 level. Outside the fen area, the upper rivers, Cam, Granta, and Rhee, are 

 bordered by belts of gravel and alluviuni which, because of the higher 

 and more permeable areas flanking them, are characterised by liigh water 

 tables and liability to flooding. The area of Gault and Chalk Marl in the 

 Rhee Valley is peculiarly circumstanced for drainage. An outlying ridge 

 of chalk, north of Barrington, makes this almost a land-locked basin 

 which, although of an altitude 70 ft. or more, is afflicted with drainage 

 conditions not unlike those of the Fenland itself With the exception of the 

 Boulder Clay areas, all the clay lands of the County are both impermeable 

 and low lying, though some of them are favoured with enough fall to 

 make field drainage moderately simple. In the Boulder Clay country, the 

 heavy land has the advantage of fair altitude and for the most part useful 



' Fuller descriptions, together with analytical details and profile descriptions, 

 are contained in Bulletin No. 98 of the Ministry of Agriculture, The Soils of 

 Cambridgeshire (1936), by H. H. Nicholson and F. Hanley. Detailed information 

 concerning the soils of fruit-growing areas in West Cambridgeshire, and in the Isle of 

 Ely, is available in Bulletin No. 61 of the Ministry of Agriculture, West Cambridgeshire 

 Fruit-Growing Area (1933), by J. F. Ward; and in Research Monograph No. 6 of the 

 Ministry of Agriculture, A Suri'ey of the Soils and Fruit of the Wisbech Area (1929), by 

 C.Wright and J. F.Ward. 



