HERTFORD SHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
XXXI 
the bed of phosphatic nodules, or “coprolite” bed at its base), 
cropped out, and the low undulating country beyond was formed 
by the Gault, the outcrop of which was marked by the chimneys of 
the brick-works at Arlesey. Beyond the Gault the Lower Green¬ 
sand came to the surface, forming a range of low hills, the beds 
being well exposed in the railway-cutting at Sandy, and still 
further north was the plain of the Oxford Clay on which Bedford 
stands. 
Mr. Eordham then referred to the glacial period, at the com¬ 
mencement of which he thought that the general outline of the 
country was much as it is now, the only subsequent change having 
been the deepening of the valleys by denudation. While in the London 
Basin the country was mostly covered by glacial gravels and boulder- 
clay, to the north patches only capped the higher hills. Large 
boulders of rocks foreign to the district were found in the clays 
and gravels, and on the surface of the country where those deposits 
had been washed away; some of these boulders were of granite, 
limestone, or millstone-grit from the north of England, showing the 
direction whence the ice by which they were transported had come.*' 
Wilbury Hill presented difficulties which required further investi¬ 
gation for their solution. The bed of fine chalk rubble and 
fragmentary chalk flints seen in the bottom of the large pit 
appeared to have been deposited from running water and to be 
older than the boulder-clay. If so, it seemed almost necessary to 
assume that before the glacial period some stream must have stood 
at that high level, but from the present configuration of the 
country this appeared improbable, and it would be desirable, 
before attempting to arrive at a conclusion as to the position of 
this bed, to ascertain, if possible, how far it extended. 
Leaving Wilbury Hill the Icknield Way was followed to Ickle- 
ford, and near the ford on the Hiz a photograph of the party was 
again taken. The church was then visited, and a history of it and 
of Ickleford was given by Mr. William Hansom. Ickleford, he said, 
has been a market-town, and there is by the ford a small green sur¬ 
rounded by houses which looks like a place for a market. The 
name was derived from the situation of the town on the Icknield 
Way, which passing westward from Baldock crosses the Biver Hiz 
by a ford. He well remembered when conveyances travelling from 
Hitchin to Arlesey had to cross a stream both on entering and 
leaving Ickleford. The church, dedicated to St. Katherine, was 
restored under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott in 1859. The 
tower, said to be the oldest part, dates back to 1140, and the south 
doorway, from the character of the Horman enrichments, appears 
to be of about the same date, though the porch is more recent. 
Opposite this entrance on the north side is another Horman 
doorway, now bricked up, indicating that the Vicarage garden, 
extending along the north side of the church, occupies a portion 
of the ancient churchyard. Mr. Hansom then described the in¬ 
terior of the church, and remarked that Clutterbuck said that the 
* See ‘ Transactions,’ Vol. Ill, pp. 33 and 47. 
