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PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1920 
characteristics from those seen at Clifford’s Mesne, and they 
are also not nearly so thick. 
Between these two exposures towards the extreme north and 
south of the area no actual exposures of Downton Sandstone 
are now to be seen, but blocks of this rock are to be found in 
the high bank above the Ross and Gloucester road just to the 
east of the railway bridge over it. These blocks show a yellow 
sandstone full of plant remains and contain numerous specimens 
of Lingula Cornea. In the stream below the road there are red, 
green and chocolate marls of Old Red Sandstone age resting on 
2 feet of green sandstone, and close by farther up the stream 
come Ludlow Shales with calcareous concretions. 
The fault noted in the Survey Memoirs must cut out the 
Downtonian beds farther north. 
Some 300 yards to the south of the above exposure a small 
stream runs down towards Longhope Church, and in its upper 
part Ludlow Sandstones are seen, and just below them are 
numerous blocks of yellow Downton Sandstone full of plant 
remains, and similar blocks are seen in another streamlet 
another 300 yards farther to the south. 
From these observations there seems little doubt that the 
Downtonian beds run from near Blaisdon northwards as far as 
the hillside where the Ross and Gloucester road comes down to 
the railway near Longhope Church. 
8. THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
It is not the purpose of this paper to give a complete account 
of the local development of the Old Red Sandstone, but a few 
points about it may be noted. 
To the south of Flaxley there are seen red sandy beds 
dipping 45 0 east-north-east below the Ludlow beds. 
In the Blaisdon railway cutting hard fissile red sandstone 
rests with apparent conformity on the Downton beds. 
In 1915, when the wall of the garden of Merlindene in 
Longhope, close to the railway bridge, was moved back, 
excavations showed dark red clay with light green layers, and 
farther to the north the stream, which runs eastwards just 
to the south of the rectory, has cut its way deeply into 
