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DEPOSITS OF THi: LEEN VALLEY 
THE ALLUVIAL AND DRIFT DEPOSITS OF THE 
LEEN VALLEY.* 
BY JAMES SHIPMAN. 
The River Leen is a small tributary of the Trent. It rises at the 
foot of Robin Hood’s Hills, in Kirkby Forest, on the western border of 
Notts, and about a mile or so north-west of Newstead Abbey, the 
“ home of Lord Byron.” Thence running in a southerly direction, and, 
fed by many springs on the way, it enters the Trent Valley by the 
west side of Nottingham, after a course of about ten miles. It is at 
best only a small stream, but the geological evidence furnished by its 
deposits invests it with an interest which it would not perhaps other¬ 
wise possess. 
We can hardly wander far about the valley of the Leen, especially 
the lower half, without noticing how thickly the ground is covered with 
pebbles. There is scarcely a ploughed field or ditch-side but what has 
its tale to tell about the abundance of gravel all over the valley. Gravel 
may even be seen perched on the top of the low cliffs of the crimson 
Lower Mottled Sandstone that stand out at intervals along the east 
bank of the Leen. In one or two places this high-level gravel may be 
seen in the roads that cut through it on that side of the valley. The 
gravel that lines the valley slopes is exposed now and then by the side 
of the Midland Railway between Basford and Bui well, and again in 
the small gravel holes that dot the low flat ground by the side of the 
same line on Bulwell Forest. But although this gravel lies eight 
or ten feet thick in some parts, there are no good sections in it, and we 
can only get occasional glimpses of its character. In some spots— 
between Basford and Bulwell, for instance, — this gravel forms 
terraces, now grass-grown, and with little to indicate that the river 
which now flows many feet below had anything to do with their 
formation. The gravel itself probably occupies shelves or terraces cut 
back out of the solid rock that forms the sides of the valley. A good 
example of one of these river terraces may be seen where it is cut into 
by the old sand pit at Spring Close, Lenton, just at the junction of the 
Leen Valley with that of the Trent. 
As we look upon these sheets and terraces of gravel scattered up 
and down the Leen Valley we can hardly help wondering where all this 
gravel came from, and how it got so distributed about the valley. 
Gravel, to most people’s minds, is suggestive of a flood of some kind, 
and it is generally (but of course erroneously) regarded by the non- 
scientific as a pretty certain indication of the presence of the sea over 
that part not very long ago. Let us see, however, what we can 
deduce from the gravel itself, as to where it probably came from, 
and when. The gravel that lines the sides of the Leen Valley 
* Read before the Nottingham Naturalists’ Society, October 11th, 1882. 
