THE FIRST FIELD MEETING

WOOLHOPE

OF

THE

CLUB.

THE late Mr. M. J. Scobie, F.G.S., was one of the founders of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in the winter months of 1851, and its earliest Honorary Secretary. His son, Col. M. J. G. Scobie, has presented to the Club an unpublished manuscript of the paper prepared by his father for the first Field Meeting of the Club in the Woolhope Valley on May 18th, 1852.

It is considered that the publication of this manuscript forty-two years after the inauguration of the Field Meetings which have proved so successful a feature of our Club will prove interesting to our members.

THE WOOLHOPE

NATURALISTS'

FIELD CLUB.

GEOLOGICAL REPORT OF THE EXCURSION TO THE WOOLHOPE "VALLEY OF ELEVATION," 18TH MAY, 1852.

By M. J. ScOBIE, F.G.S.

Read 20th July, 1852.

THE morning of the 18th of May, the day fixed for the first Field Meeting of our Club, opened with every indication of proving unfavourable to our contemplated excursion. The heavens gradually assumed a more threatening appearance, and, upon the arrival of the members at Tarrington at 9 a.m. the rain descended in torrents. The attendance was consequently not so numerous as could have been desired. The important preliminary of breakfast having been satisfactorily despatched, the Rev. Wm. S. Symonds, of Pendock, was, in the unavoidable absence of our excellent President (Mr. R. M. Lingwood) unanimously called to the chair. The minutes of the last meeting having been read, and other routine business disposed of, the Chairman delivered an address with reference chiefly to the management of the Club, and concluded by recommending that gentlemen who had anything to communicate should then do so, in the hope that the weather would in the interval clear up so as to enable the members to carry out their proposed investigations. Accordingly, the Rev. Reginald P. Hill, of Cradley, exhibited a specimen of Caradoc Sandstone containing the characteristic fossils curiously altered by heat: this specimen was from the Malvern Hills where the Caradoc formations are at various points associated with trappean rocks which at a very early period must have been erupted in a state of fusion, altering the strata through which the volcanic matter had forced a passage. Here it may not be unworthy of remark that there is no instance throughout the district of a similar metamorphosis having taken place from contact with Syenite, the foundation rock of the Malvern range. We may hence justly infer that the latter was consolidated previously to the deposition of the superincumbent sedimentary strata under the pressure of an ocean of considerable depth.

A collection of Mammalian remains discovered by Mr. Ballard of Hereford, during the formation of the Herefordshire canal, in gravels of various kinds, was then submitted for examination. It has been a subject of remark that our superficial deposits are peculiarly destitute of Fossil Mammalian remains, and it is therefore gratifying that our first meeting should have been instrumental in throwing some light upon a subject which has hitherto remained in obscurity. The elucidation of these gravels presents an ample field for the researches of an intelligent geologist, and it is to be hoped they will receive that amount of attention at the hands of the Club which their importance demands. It is only by a careful examination of their constituents, fossil contents, manner of distribution, and relative elevations, that the periods of their depositions and origin can be ascertained.

Sir Rodk. Murchison divides the gravels of England into two classes. The first includes all those coarse and sometimes far transported fragments to which some geologists apply the word "diluvium," but which to avoid misconstruction he designates drift, and this drift he subdivides into three distinct varieties, two of which he terms local, the third foreign. "The drift of the high lands of Siluria" (to quote from Sil. Syst., p. 510), "is of the earliest date and was produced by the elevation of the older rocks. The next in age arose from the upcasts of the various coal measures, and the third or most modern drift is that which covers large portions of the central counties and contains boulders of northern granite, all which detritus was accumulated beneath the sea during successive epochs. The second class of alluvia includes all the deposits formed in lakes and river courses since the final elevation of the districts from beneath the sea; also the masses of travertine formed by calcareous springs and the various results of atmospheric action." As we have no evidence in the district west of the Malvern Hills of the deposition of any rocks more modern than those of the palæozoic ages, it is evident that some of our gravels may be of very high antiquity.

But to return to our fossils. Bones and teeth referable to the mammoth and the deer were distinguishable from others, which upon closer examination may prove to belong to the ox, the bos urus, or bison, and the hog. Important and suggestive facts! Has the climatal system of the earth undergone a change since those dry bones lived and moved, the denizens of this land? The representatives of some of those mammals are in our day confined to the swamps and borders of certain tropical rivers, or, at least, to countries within the torrid zone.

From the wonderful adaptation to particular spheres of enjoyment which characterises the various families of the animal kingdom, it seems just to argue that when those extinct creatures were indigenous, and roamed the forests and sported in the waters of this northern latitude, the conditions under which they lived were analogous to those in which similar families exist in the present day. But this is not the conclusion at which our most eminent geologists have arrived. Huge pachyderms are known to have existed during the glacial epoch, and Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Owen have explained the capabilities of these animals to sustain the hardships of a cold climate equal in intensity to a Siberian winter.

The weather having partially cleared up towards one o'clock the investigations of the day commenced on the interesting grounds of Lady Emily Foley, where our party divided, geologists and botanists taking separate routes.

Near Tarrington were observed some samples of Downton Sandstones at the base of the Old Red system, but not in actual contact with it, the junction beds being there obscured by superficial accumulations.

In ascending the hill at Stoke Edith our party crossed the upper Ludlow shale, and upon attaining the summit recognised a ridge of Aymestrey rock-a formation one step lower in the Silurian series. In ascending the hill, however paradoxical it may sound, we had, geologically speaking, penetrated deeper into the earth's crust. Palæontologically we had receded to a period when, ere the fiat had gone forth calling a higher order of beings into existence, invertebrata appear to have been the sole inhabitants of the deep.

We had now arrived within view of the Woolhope "Valley of Elevation." So great has been the labour bestowed on this remarkable region by Sir Roderick Murchison, Professor John Phillips, and other eminent geologists, and so copious is the information already before the public, that our object in visiting it was rather to launch our bark and proceed on our voyage from a port of such worldwide celebrity than to entertain much hope of making any fresh discoveries.

The Woolhope Valley of Elevation, admitted to be the most symmetrical of its type in Great Britain, is described by Mr. Strickland as "an elevation crater in which we see the ineffectual struggles of a focus of volcanic energy to burst through the incumbent strata." That this energy was directed towards a single point is evident, for we find an unbroken succession of Silurian strata from the Caradoc to the Old Red sandstone, dipping on all sides from a common centre at angles of from 15° to 70°. The area occupied by the upcast Silurian strata extends from Dormington on the N.W. to Gorstley Common on the S.E., a distance of about ten miles; and from Fownhope on the S.W. to Putley on the N.E., about four miles. A semicircle described from Fownhope to Putley, through the villages of Mordiford, Dormington, and Tarrington, with convergent lines from the extremities of the arc meeting at Gorstley Common, would embrace the whole district, the general outline of which resembles a boy's kite, or a pear, tapering towards Gorstley Common, which part Sir Rodk. Murchison designates "the stem."

The manner of upheaval and the denudation to which the district has been subjected are strikingly manifest in the physical character of the country. We perceive a central elliptically-shaped dome encircled by two narrow ridges of hills attaining their greatest altitude towards the north; Seager Hill in the exterior circle being 892 feet above the sea, while the elevation of a nearly corresponding point of the inner circle at Devereux Park is about 650 feet, or something lower than the central dome. In the memoirs of the Geological Survey, Professor Phillips gives the following graphic description of the upcast region:

"The internal structure corresponds most accurately with the external configuration. The central dome is composed of the lowest strata, viz.:-Caradoc sandstone, overlaid by Woolhope limestone; the concavity around it is sunk in the Wenlock shales; the inner ring of hills is formed by the outcrop of Wenlock limestone; the hollow which encircles it of the lower Ludlow shales, and the outer

chain of high ground which borders and overlooks the whole of this singular district is a ridge of Aymestrey rocks and upper Ludlow flags and shales dipping everywhere from the centre towards a wide area of the Old Red Sandstone."

There can be no doubt that previous to the convulsive movement of which I have spoken the whole country was continuously overlaid with Old Red Sandstone, and that, again, by Carboniferous strata, but, during long ages of submergence the wreck of those systems has been swept away along with inmense masses of the upcast Silurian formations.

So complete was the work of denudation that not a fragment of Old Red or drift of any description can be detected in the valley. The faults which here occur deserve attention, not being the least interesting phenomena which present themselves to puzzle young geologists; the most considerable of these which runs from Mordiford for some distance in the line of the Pentelow Brook, to near Tarrington, cuts off a portion of the Woolhope Limestone and Caradoc Sandstone from the Central Dome, and, as it has the effect of depressing the strata towards the north, brings these formations into contact with Wenlock Shale; and, at the Gorge near Mordiford, places the Ludlow rocks in opposition to Old Red Sandstone. Another fault, which runs in a northerly direction east of Old Sutton and Priors Frome, depresses the strata to the east, and produces in its course a double ridge of Aymestrey rock.

The gradual percolation of water through the Ludlow rocks, which are much interlaminated with argillaceous bands, and which occupy elevated situations to the north and north-east, has occasioned landslips of considerable magnitude. That near Dormington, which took place in the year 1843 was visited by our botanical party. "Adam's rocks" on the southern slope of Backbury hill and "The Wonder" near Putley are also interesting examples of similar displacements. Descending the southern slope of Stoke hill our party crossed the excavated trench of lower Ludlow shale, already alluded to, to the quarried escarpments of Wenlock limestone at Dormington wood. The scene presented at this interesting spot is of a character calculated to strike the commonest observer with awe and astonishment. Buried and embalmed in the solid rock, of which they may be said to form the mass, are seen the remains of millions of the early invertebrate inhabitants of our planet. Not to speak of myriads of encrinital, molluscous, and conchiferous remains: the beautiful corals of the formation are in such vast abundance that, to the mind's eye, a modern tropical reef seems realized; imagination pictures its millions of polypi spreading forth their tiny arms in their native element, revelling in the enjoyment of that peculiar and beautiful principle of life which, animating individually, and vibrating through the mass, associated them together in a common bond of unity.

After leaving Dormington wood our party were subjected to a terrific and uninterrupted storm of thunder, lightning and rain. Our progress consequently being hastened along the line of fault through the romantic glen of the Pentelow brook, and from thence to the Scutwardine quarries of Woolhope limestone, we arrived at Fownhope at 4 o'clock; there the members dined together according to appointment, and separated late in the day after expressing many hearty wishes for the prosperity of the Woolhope Club.

DISCOVERY OF FOUNDATIONS OF AN OLD PIGEON-
HOUSE AT INSTONE, NEAR BROMYARD.
By E. L. CAVE.

IN making excavations for the new railway from Bromyard to Leominster, the contractors have unearthed, at a depth of only a few inches below the ground level, the foundations of a circular Pigeon-house or dovecote. The site of the discovery is close to Instone Bridge, in a meadow known as far back as the beginning of the century as "The Pigeon-house-meadow." Only about one-half of the circle exists, with two rows of nests, of somewhat irregular build, and not quite rectangular in shape. The diameter is 15 feet, the thickness of the walls 3 feet 3 inches, the alighting ledge 3 inches. The openings of the nest holes are 5 to 6 inches wide by about 7 inches high, and the nests vary in depth from about 12 to 18 inches, by about 12 to 15 inches wide at the back. The lower tier is about 12 inches from the ground, and there is a distance of about 11 inches between the tiers. In the lower tier the nest holes widen to the right, and to the left in the upper tier. The measurements can only be given approximately, because, in most cases, the openings appear to have been made to fit the stones rather than the reverse, the widenings at the back being very irregular, extending backwards sometimes as much as 20 inches.

According to Mr. Watkins' paper on Herefordshire Pigeon-houses on page 9 of Transactions of the Woolhope Club for 1890, of the 74 still existing eleven are circular, and ten of these are built of stone. One existed at Rowden Abbey near where Mr. Bailey's house now stands. It was unfortunately pulled down as useless some 35 years ago.

By the way, is not Rowden Abbey a misnomer? I have never been able to find any traces of a religious house there, and an Abbey was far too important a place not to have left some trace of its existence behind. The place itself seems to betoken a moated grange or manor house, similar to, though larger than, that of Lower Brockhampton, rather than an Abbey, and it apparently lacked what Brockhampton has, a chapel of its own. My own impression is that Rowden Abbey is merely a corruption of Rowden d'Abitot. The d'Abitots held property near the house at Upper Munderfield being formerly known as d'Abitots (Debiters) barn, and there are other places in the neigbourhood bearing the name of d'Abitot.

But to return to our dovecote. A note in the Hereford Diocesan Calendar for 1891, states that according to a document dated 840 (the oldest preserved in Hereford Cathedral), Bishop Cuthwulf granted land to a Monastery near Bromyard. It may be that the Porthouse land is that referred to. If a Monastery did exist here, it must have ceased to exist at a comparatively early period, for there seems to be no other mention of it, nor any account of its suppression, though the three sinecure Rectories, or Prebends of Bromyard, may be part of its revenues.

There is some traditional lore connected with Instone about two Knights fighting a duel, and the countryfolk connect the effigies at Edwin Ralph with one of the Instone families, but the details of the tradition differ and are confused.