Vol. 56.] GEOLOGY OF THE MALVERN AND ABBERLEY HILLS. 165 



XI. Woodbury, Wallsgrove, Rodge, and Penny Hills. 



(See Map, fig. 15 a, p. 164.) 



The present writer, having carefully investigated the mutual rela- 

 tions between the various formations in the Malvern and adjacent 

 districts, had concluded from these investigations, and from the 

 data given by Phillips, that the Iiange probably dated from one of 

 two periods. The Haffield Breccia itself, or occasionally certain 

 underlying Coal Measures, rest unconformably and relatively un- 

 disturbed on the overfolded series. The movement which produced 

 the Range must, therefore, have taken place before the deposition of 

 these particular Coal Measures. On the other hand, it follows from 

 Phillips's description of the Malvern and Abberley Banges, from 

 confirmatory statements by Mr. Cantrill, 1 and from further evidence 

 which I propose to give, that the overfolded series includes beds 

 ranging up as high as the Lower Old Bed Sandstone. The Eange, 

 therefore, arose during some part of the Old Eed Sandstone or 

 Carboniferous periods. Now, there is some reason to believe that 

 during these periods two chief tectonic movements took place in 

 the Western Midlands — the first probably in the interval between 

 the deposition of the Lower and Upper Old Eed Sandstone, and 

 the second between the deposition of the Middle and Upper Coal 

 Measures ; proofs of the latter movement have been given by 

 Mr. D. Jones in the case of the Porest-of-Wyre Coalfield. 2 I ac- 

 cordingly made a careful survey of some of the northern hills of the 

 Abberley Eange and of the adjoining part of the Pores t-of-Wyre 

 Coalfield, with the object of determining whether any portion of the 

 Coal Measures shared in the overfolding. The structure of the hills 

 will be dealt with first. 



Woodbury Hill is formed of a mass of Haffield Breccia, gene- 

 rally resting, as Phillips maintains, directly and unconformably upon 

 the Silurian, but sometimes separated from the latter by a feeble 

 representative of the Coal Measures. 3 Murchison states that the 

 coal-beds on the western slopes of Woodbury Hill consist ' merely of 

 thin shreds of Carboniferous strata thown up in elevated positions, 

 or rather squeezed up in separate patches between the trap 4 and 

 the Silurian rocks. These poor and shallow deposits were necessarily 

 soon exhausted, and no accurate records of the works remain.' 5 

 Phillips (he. cit.) states that the ' cap of peculiar conglomerate. . . . 

 discloses, between it and the Silurian strata, a narrow, very distinct 

 outcrop of coal and coal-shales.' These Coal Measures are no longer 

 visible, but I observed traces of them in the form of bits of Coal- 

 Measure sandstone, clay, and coal at Woodbury Hill Parm. Bedding 



1 ' Geol. of Wyre Forest Coalfield ' Kidderminster, 1895, p. 10. 



2 Trans. Fed. Inst. M.E. vol. vii (1894) p. 287. 



3 Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. ii (1848) pt. i, pp. 152 & 153. 



4 Murchison's ' trap ' is the Haffield Breccia. 

 3 ' Silurian System,' 1839, p. 135. 



