134 



COAL SEAMS NEAR BEWDLEY. 



Shatterford Turnpike-gate, in others it expands to a mile and even more. It is flanked, like the 

 narrow zones of coal at the Borle Brook and Stanley, by Old and New Red Sandstone, and the de- 

 posit is thin and of little value : it is also divided through a considerable portion of its course, by 

 a basaltic dyke, on the sides of which the strata are exceedingly disturbed and broken (PI. 30. fig.3.). 

 Some money has been expended in this neighbourhood, but all the works are now abandoned, with 

 the exception of those near the trap dyke, where the coal is actually thrown up "today," and from 

 which the poorer people extract a scanty supply of fuel. 



An equally profitless and still smaller tongue of the coal measures, passes from the Forest of Wyre 

 to the left bank of the Severn, opposite Dowles, near Bewdley. It is bounded on the north by the 

 Old Red, on the south by the New Red Sandstone, and has been partially worked, but the pits 

 were abandoned almost as soon as commenced. 



The coal measures near Bewdley, and extending thence by Ribbesford Upper Woods to Stagbury 

 Hill, are still less productive, for they merely consist of the lower grits and conglomerates of the 

 series. The strata are often exposed in highly inclined positions. Thus at Bark Hill near Bewdley, 

 the grits dip south-east 45°, abutting unconformably against the New Red Sandstone, on which 

 the town is built (PI. 30. fig. 2.) Most of the strata are undistinguishable from the ordinary 

 millstone grit, but in the hills west of Ribbesford, the grains and pebbles of quartz, more or less 

 rounded, are inclosed in a greenish argillaceous paste, which has the appearance of decomposed trap, 

 similar to the tufaceous conglomerate of Hales Owen, in the southern extremity of the coal-field of 

 Dudley. At the eastern edge of Ribbesford woods and close to the banks of the Severn, one of these 

 coal measure conglomerates dips at a high angle to the north-east, and consists of a coarse admixture 

 of rounded pebbles of quartz rock, some as large as a child's head, smaller pieces and fragments of 

 trap rock, porphyry, and much green earth, perhaps derived from decomposed amygdaloids, the 

 cement being slightly calcareous. It is associated with red shale, whitish sandstone, &c. Another 

 variety of these conglomerates occurs at Dumbleton, where it has been quarried to a depth of fifty 

 feet in the following descending order : — 



Yellowish clay; yellowish flag-like sandstone; yellow and purple shale; shale, with stony bands; 

 irregular courses of grit, becoming coarser downwards, but separated from each other by thin seams 

 of red and yellow clay; hard argillaceous conglomerate of a greenish colour, containing small pebbles 

 of rounded quartz ; and trap rocks including pink compact felspar, some of the size of eggs. The 

 conglomerate is usually in a decomposing state, and is occasionally traversed by strings of crystal- 

 lized carbonate of lime. These strata, which are nearly horizontal, lie in unconformable juxta- 

 position to the Old Red Sandstone, and are a continuation of the conglomerates near Bewdley. 



On the western boundary of the Bewdley Forest the measures contain a few seams of poor coal, 

 which are worked at King's Wood, Baveney, &c. ; but at the latter place the whole series is very 

 thin ; and in consequence of the broken and uneven surface of the underlying Old Red Sandstone, the 

 carboniferous strata are thrown into partial saddles and curvatures. At this point the coal measures 

 are distant only about two miles from the eastern limit of the coal grits of the Clee Hills, the inter- 

 vening country consisting of Old Red Sandstone. 



At Bayton and Mamble, south of Cleobury Mortimer, there are numerous coal-pits near the line 

 of junction with the Old Red Sandstone ; and coal measures extend over the parishes of Rock and 

 Pensax to the western foot of the Abberley Hills. In some of the pits near Pensax, the shafts are 

 from thirty to forty yards deep, passing through white sandstone ; and two coals are worked, of 

 which the upper or yard coal is the best. A third and lower coal, of inferior quality, is not 

 extracted. 



