BASE OF NEW RED SYSTEM WEST OF WORCESTER. 



53 



of sandstone are highly inclined. At Black's Well, near Knightwick, where the Silurian rocks 

 subside for a short interval, are extensive quarries of a lightish red sandstone, speckled with yellow 

 grains, and of a very superior quality. This thick-bedded, though finely laminated sandstone, 

 dips 18° south-east; the angle of inclination having decreased with the depression of the ridge 

 of older rocks against which it rests. 



Almost adjoining the sandstone of Black's Well, and constituting the southern side 

 of the gorge at Knightsford Bridge, through which the Teme escapes from Herefordshire 

 into the plains of Worcestershire, is a remarkable cliff called " Rosemary Rock," the 

 summit of which is about three hundred and fifty feet above the sea. At this spot, the Old 

 Red and New Red Sandstones are again conterminous, being separated by only an alluvial 

 meadow. (See Section PI. 29. fig. 4.) The northern face of Rosemary Rock, is the finest 

 vertical section of the coarse conglomerate near the base of the new red, with which I am 

 acquainted. The fragments vary from a large size to that of almonds, and are both rounded 

 and angular ; the greater number and largest, consisting of a purple coloured, concre- 

 tionary trap, hereafter to be described, which occurs in the hills of Barrow, Woodbury, 

 and Abberley, the northern prolongation of the Malvern ridge. The other fragments are 

 chiefly referrible to the Silurian system, and among them are quartz rock, indurated 

 schist, and other altered rocks. The cement is partly calcareous, with a few veins of 

 white calcareous spar. On a hasty inspection, this rock and others resembling it along 

 this chain of hills, (as at Haffield Camp described p. 51,) might be mistaken for the 

 trap rocks, from which they have been partly derived, but the admixture of fragments 

 of stratified rocks of the Silurian and Old Red Systems, distinctly proves its regenerated 

 character. The summits of those hills lying to the north of the Teme, which are 

 marked in the map as trap, exhibit, on the contrary, no fragments except those of a 

 peculiar rock, predominant in this range and in the Clent Hills. 



At Collins Green, conglomerates like those of Rosemary Rock, associated with beds of 

 deep red sandstone, rise to the same height as the ridge of Silurian rocks, from the flanks 

 of which they dip 20° to 25° south-east. In this conglomerate are also many portions of 

 silicified schist, quartz rock, and altered Silurian rock. The Silurian and trap rocks 

 subsiding to the west of Martley, the New Red Sandstone is again conterminous with 

 the Old, and with the depression of the older and intrusive rocks, we find a corresponding 

 absence of coarse conglomerate and trappean fragments ; the deep-coloured, thick-bedded 

 sandstone of Martley, being nearly free from all pebbles and foreign fragments. In the 

 north-western parts of Worcestershire, the New Red System begins to expand; and con- 

 glomerates, such as those described, are partially underlaid by soft red sandstone, both 

 on the eastern flanks of Walsgrove Hill near the Hundred House, and at the termination 

 of the Abberley Ridge (the Round Hills). Thence to the north, the boundary line of 

 the New Red Sandstone comes in contact with the stiff clays and flagstones of the Old 

 Red, but within two miles of Bewdley, it begins to flank the coal measures; and other 

 examples of the angular coarse trappean conglomerate or breccia occur, the fragments of 



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