566 TRAVERTINE. — -THE SOUTHSTONE ROCK. 



This modern rock, which from its light and porous structure is there called " Puff 

 Stone," was formerly much used for building, and has occasionally been burnt for quick 

 lime. 



The mass of travertine, called the Southstone Rock, vulgo "Rotch," and which occurs 

 in a picturesque dingle, midway between Piper's Brook and Sapey Brook, is by far the 

 largest of these deposits. It is about 200 feet above the Teme, and beneath the 

 impending escarpments of cornstone of the Old Red System. The surface of this 

 rock extends over at least half an acre, and is covered by a house and garden. 

 At the northern extremity it terminates in a bluff precipice from 50 to 60 feet high, 

 faced with gigantic botryoidal stalactites which hang over the dingle ; and the mass 

 being full of cavities, some of the interior passages lead, by winding paths, from the 

 base to the summit. (See vignette, head of the chapter.) This rock, the largest body of 

 travertine hitherto observed in Great Britain 1 , has been entirely deposited by a spring, 

 which gushes out on the eastern side of the cornstone, about twenty paces above the 

 little cottage, and daily forms a fresh incrustation upon the edges of plants and stones. 

 The rill has been so long in action, that a mass of rock of its own creation now forces 

 it round to the south, before it can turn northwards and fall into the adjoining rivulet. 

 In this newer part of its course I perceived that bricks and parts of old buildings 

 had become cemented into the deposit. No lithological difference, however, can be 

 detected in the matrix of the rock forming its ancient and modern extremities, except 

 that the former is perhaps rather more compact than the latter. Here, as well as in 

 parts of Sapey Brook and Piper's Brook, it is associated with a cream-coloured cal- 

 careous sand, sometimes very marly and unctuous. The only shell which I could per- 

 ceive is the common Helix nemoralis, but it occurs in great quantities, associated with 

 numberless fibres, and small stems of plants, grasses, &c. The road to the cottage, or 

 eastern side of the rock, has been cut through about 15 feet of the travertine, which 

 there rests upon the Old Red Sandstone. 



The Southstone rock is a valuable landmark in proving the tranquillity of the 

 surface of this district during the modern period. All the external features of the 

 environs harmonize with this supposition, the adjoining valley of the Teme being filled 

 only with the finely levigated fluviatile or lacustrine shingle, to which we have before 



i "Extensive use was formerly made of travertine in this country, and it is still seen in old ecclesiastical 

 buildings in Shropshire and Herefordshire. The ancient church of Quatford, near Bridgnorth, built in the 

 11th century, was altogether constructed of travertine. The nave was taken down many years since, but there 

 still remains the chancel and a Norman arch, which are composed of it. Traces of it are seen in the eastern 

 end of Quat Church, and it has been found in the middle of the church wall at Worfield, Chetton, and other 

 places in that neighbourhood. In the walls of the chancel and other parts of Aymestry Church are regular 

 courses composed of travertine, but they are evidently the worked up materials of a more ancient fabric, which 

 was probably altogether composed of it; and a few blocks are seen likewise in the exterior walls of the eastern 

 end of Wigmore Church." (Extract from a Letter of the Rev. T. T. Lewis.) 



