22 
PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1915 
EXCURSION TO MAY HILL, Near GLOUCESTER. 
Saturday, June 26th, 1915. 
Director : C. I. GARDINER, M.A., F.G.S. 
{Report by the Director.) 
On Saturday, June 26th, a party of the Club, including Mr. W. R. Carles, 
C.M.G., and C. Upton (Vice-Presidents), Lieut.-Col. J. C. Duke, the Rev. J. 
J. D. Cooke, Surgeon-Major I. Newton, Messrs. F. H. Bretherton, G. M. 
Currie, M. Bellows, E. W. Fylfe, C. I. Gardiner, T. S. Ellis, A. S. Montgomrey, 
F. Hannam-Clark, A. J. Stephens, etc., visited May Hill. 
Owing to pressure of work the Honorary Secretary was unable to 
be present, and Mr Gardiner acted as Secretary and Director. The majority 
of the Members motored from Gloucester and met the cyclists at Huntley. 
By the roadside at Huntley two quarries were seen, the one in New Red 
Sandstone, and a few yards further on one in a hard green and purple fine 
sandy grit. This latter rock is considered by Dr. Callaway to be of Pre- 
Cambrian age ; the beds are folded up sharply into a vertical position, and 
at one place are slightly overfolded. Between the two quarries is, in a 
north and south direction, one of the most important faults in England, 
which, coming down the east side of the Malvern Hills, runs down to Huntley. 
Movement along this line probably began in Coal-Measure times, and can 
hardly be said to have ceased yet, for the earthquake of some twenty years 
ago seems to have been a tremor caused by a small displacement along this 
old line of dislocation. 
Proceeding up to Dursley Cross the party walked up May Hill, noting 
on the way the two types of Llandovery rocks which occur in this district — 
the lower a coarse red sandstone with large fragments of well-rounded felsite 
and quartz grains of considerable size in it ; the upper, a fine yellow sandstone. 
Fossils in the former are very scarce and very fragmentary, while the 
upper bed is frequently full of brachiopods and corals. 
From the summit of May Hill a wide and interesting view was obtained. 
The geology of the immediate neighbourhood was discussed and attention 
was called to the parallel ridges formed of Carboniferous, Old Red Sandstone, 
and hard Silurian rocks. 
The descent was made to Rock Farm, where a quarry in the Wenlock 
Limestone was visited, in which fossils were found. At Longhope tea was 
obtained, and afterwards Mr Gardiner spoke of the work done in the middle 
of the 19th century by Sedgwick and Murchison in North and South Wales, 
and of the great geologic storms which raged in those days round May Hill. 
Murchison classed the May Hill Sandstone as the equi\-alent of the Caradoc 
Sandstone of Horderley, which is of Bala age, while Sedgwick claimed its 
fossils as showing that it was of later date. Eventually the Survey re-in- 
vestigated the May Hill Sandstone of the Llandovery district, and found 
Sedgwick’s conclusions were right. They then called this deposit Llandovery 
Sandstone, and it is now known to be of a higher horizon than the Caradoc 
Sandstone, which is nowhere seen in the May Hill district. 
On the journey back quarries near Blaisdon were inspected, which are 
in the upper part of the Wenlock Limestone and in the Lower-Ludlow Beds. 
EXCURSION TO AVEBURY AND DISTRICT. 
Tuesday, July 6th. 
Owing to the impossibility of obtaining motors or brakes — on account of 
the War — this exciu'sion had to be abandoned. 
