154 



COAL-FIELD OF NEWENT. 



nearer to the outline of the Old Red Sandstone, the coal strata were found to be so highly inclined 

 that the works were soon abandoned, though not before the ruin of those concerned. At Boulsdon, 

 6 shafts were opened about 30 years ago by a Joint Stock Company. Here, as at Lower House, 

 there were 4 seams of coal lying nearly all together, the first being 1 foot 6 inches, the second 

 10 inches, the third 10 inches, and the lowermost 2 feet 6 inches in thickness. The shafts were 

 from 63 to 80 yards deep ; the faults were very numerous, and the enterprise was abandoned owing 

 to the great influx of water. The strata inclined slightly to the south, or from the flank of May 

 Hill 1 . 



Poor as are these coal-seams, it is exceedingly probable that the works were under- 

 taken at those spots along the line of outcrop where the measures are the thickest • for 

 the coal-field actually thins out to the north and south, and these pits were sunk at 

 intermediate points. In the hills north of Newent, indeed, there are instructive ex- 

 amples of the thinning out and final disappearance of the carboniferous strata. A good 

 illustration of this was made apparent when the tunnel of the Ledbury Canal was cut 

 through these hills. A man, 80 years of age, who worked in it, informed me, that 

 midway in the hill, between the soft sandy beds (New Red) on the south, and the 

 stiff clays (argillaceous marls of the Old Red), on the north, they drove through a 

 thin vein of " coaly stuff" with poor thin " pieces " of the mineral, but without, as he 

 termed it, " any state of coal." Following the line of junction of the New and Old 

 Red to the north, I found precisely similar evidences exposed under the escarpments 

 of the New Red Sandstone, extending from the Castle Turnpike to Pit Leases. At 

 various intermediate spots along this line, shafts have been sunk and thin portions of 

 coal extracted ; but these are entirely wanting in other places, and the conglome- 

 rates of the New Red are actually seen in open quarries resting un conformably on the 

 inclined beds of the Old Red. To the east of Gamage Hall, the carboniferous beds 

 appear for the last time in this direction, the coal itself cropping out in the ditches of 

 the ploughed lands which lie between the rye-land hills of New Red Sandstone, and the 

 clay of the Old Red. The water passing through the porous overlying strata, is 

 held up by the narrow argillaceous zone of coal measures ; which is of so cold and 

 heartless a quality as almost to defy improvement. This is the clearest example I am 

 acquainted with, of the thinning out of a coal-field. It was a very interesting task, 

 indeed, to trace the same strata from this narrow wedge near Gamage Hall, through all 

 their contractions and expansions, between the New Red Sandstone and the Old, 

 to their full development in the trough-shaped land to the west of Newent, and 

 again to follow them till they finally disappeared upon the sides of May Hill, where 

 the New Red Sandstone reposes at once on the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian rocks . 

 If coal-works are ever to be resumed near Newent, with any prospect of success, the 

 trials should be made to the east of the town, by sinking through a thicker cover of the 



1 Owing to the condition of the surface resulting from these old works, I could not perceive whether the 

 coal measures at this spot had been covered by any portion of the New Red Sandstone. 



