150 LIAS OF ENGLAND AND WALES: 
CHAPTER VI. 
LOWER LIAS (continued). 
LOCAL DETAILS. 
Evesham to Stratford-on-Avon, the Vale of Moreton, Chipping 
Norton, aud Charlbury. 
IN the neighbourhood of Evesham the basement-beds of the 
Lower Lias occur near the surface at Hasler Hill, to the 
W.S.W. of the town, where stone was formerly quarried. A 
boring for coal by Hasler Farm, proved 75 feet of Lower Lias 
and Rhsetic Beds, before the New Red Marl was reached.* 
In the country north-east of Evesham, from South Littleton to 
Wilmcote, we find many sections of the basement-beds, which 
consist mainly of even beds of blue limestone and marl or dark shale. 
The shallow quarries now open near South Littleton and Cleeve 
Prior, to which I was conducted by Mr. 11. F. Tomes, show only 
the bands of limestone (to a depth of 8 or 10 feet) that are used 
locally for building- and paving-purposes : we do not see the 
junction with the Rhsetic Beds. At South Littleton the surface- 
beds were nipped up in a series of sharp folds as at Croome 
D'Abitot (p. 146). 
At Cleeve Prior we find slabs (8 by 5 feet) with many speci- 
mens of Ostrea liassica, like the " Firestone " of Binton. Among 
other fossils are bones of Ichthyosaurus, also Lima, Pleuromya, 
species of Echini, &c. Banded limestone (Insect Limestone) 
yielding Ammonites Johnstoni was exposed in the Nibble quarry, 
east of Cleeve Prior.t 
The thickness of the limestone-beds (zone of Am. planorbis] in 
this area is about 20 feet, for Strickland notes 34 feet of strata 
(including 14 feet of clay on top) down TO the Firestone, at 
Bickmarsh, east of Cleeve Prior. J 
Sections, no longer well exposed, at Bidford, Binton, and Temple 
Grafton, have been described by Mr. R. F. Tomes and others. 
That at Binton is most important as it showed the connexion with 
the Rhsetic Beds : the following account of it is by Mr, Tomes : 
* Memoirs of H. E. Strickland, p. 88. 
f See Tomes, Geol. Mag. 1888, p. 212. 
j Memoirs, p. cc. 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvi. p. 394, xxxiv. p. 182 ; Wright, Lias Am- 
monites, p. 19 ; and Brodie, Proc. Warwickshire Field Club, 1868. 
