1. Conserving Herefordshire’s Ice Age Ponds
The Development Stage for the Ice Age Ponds Project has now come to an end. By the end of the Development Stage all the volunteers have helped complete a total of 41 surveys which exceeded our target of 30 by a long way.
The application, for the Delivery Stage of the project, to the National Lottery Heritage Fund was submitted on the 20th August. The decision will be known in November. If the bid is successful it is likely that the project will get started again in January or February 2020.
But this isn’t quite the end of the project. We couldn’t have done all this wonderful work without the amazing people who gave their time to survey ponds, let us visit their ponds and helped us find new ponds, research history and connect with landowners. To say a huge “Thank You” we would like to invite you to our Project Celebration at Weobley Village Hall, Gadbridge Road, HR4 8SN, on Thursday 24th October from 2-4pm. As well as plenty of tea, coffee and cake we will have some displays showing some of the huge amount of data we collected and our plans for the future. Please let Beth know if you are coming (just so we have enough cake) by emailing e.andrews@worc.ac.uk. We look forward to seeing you soon.’
Finally, a little reminder; If you have attended one of our training days but haven’t received your copy of “Kettle hole ponds survey method manual” please can you get in touch with Beth on e.andrews@worc.ac.uk and we can make sure one gets posted out to you.
2. Support EHT through the **NEW** Worcester Lottery
The Worcester Community Lottery has recently been launched by Worcester City Council and the EHT is one of its good causes. Half of the value of tickets sold through our page comes directly to us, with another 10% distributed to other local causes. One in 50 tickets wins a prize, with a prize maximum of £25,000.
So if you feel like a flutter on the lottery, please support the EHT by visiting our web page on the Worcester Lottery site:
https://www.worcesterlottery.org/support/herefordshire-worcestershire-earth-heritage-trust
You are invited to buy tickets on a weekly basis at one pound each, with a minimum commitment of one month (five tickets) and can cancel at any time after that. Good luck!
3. The Geopark Way Guidebook Launch and Walk – Saturday 28 July 2019
The Geopark Way new edition guidebook was launched very successfully at Ledbury Market House on Saturday 28 July, at an event from 11am – 1pm which was followed by a walk for 20 people, led by Geopark Way Warden, Alan Hughes, around the town and taking in a couple of local quarries showing different, locally sourced stone types in evidence in buildings in the town.
The launch event was opened by H&W EHT Chair, Ian Fairchild who introduced Ledbury’s Deputy Mayor, Councillor Dan Vesma, who very kindly welcomed visitors to the event, Ledbury and the Market House and gave a recital of a poem from locally born poet, John Masefield, about the landscape around Ledbury.
Ian Fairchild then talked about the inception of the Geopark Way, its roots in the Geopark movement, the geological background of the route and thanked the people who set it up, as well as acknowledging the people who enabled the new copy of the guidebook to be published and the Geopark Way Wardens who currently look after the Geopark Way, some of whom were in attendance on the day.
H&WEHT’s poet in residence, David Pamment (who also happens to be the Trust’s Finance Manager) delivered us his own composition dedicated to the Geopark Way, I am 109 miles, which told of the component parts which make up the entirety of the Geopark Way and summed it up extremely well, in poetic form, in the town which holds a renowned poetry festival every year which was more than fitting. (Poem included below on page 4-6)
Approximately 60 people came through the doors to see what we had to offer and the news release and launch event has spawned articles in a wide variety of magazines and publications which should spread the word of this unique 109 mile walking trail to a new audience and encourage people to walk the Geopark Way.
Now over 10 years old and recognised by Ordnance Survey, mapped across four counties and covering nearly 700 million years of geological time, the Geopark Way certainly deserves this recognition and the new guidebook enables you to learn about the landscape, heritage, culture, ecology and geology through maps, directions, descriptions, photographs and a handy glossary of terms you might need.
Visitors to the launch were able to pick up valuable information and engage with displays about EHT’s many other projects, buy items from the Trust’s engaging range of publications and gifts, as well as availing themselves of copies of the guidebook at a special launch.
To get your own copy and join us on the Geopark Way, go to the H&WEHT online shop
Thank you to everyone from H&WEHT who helped to welcome visitors, serve drinks and sell merchandise at the launch and to those who spoke and led the 1.5 hour walk which made the event such an enjoyable and informative launch for the Geopark Way and its new guidebook.
| ONE-OH-NINE MILES |
| A Ghost Written Autobiography of the Geopark Way. |
| Part One – How Long Am I? |
| Me? I am one-oh-nine miles |
| I am Earth to space and down again |
| and halfway up once more, |
| I am more than twice the travel |
| Twixt cathedrals door to door, |
| Double the distance and then some |
| As the Whitmans’ falcons fly, |
| Yet only half the passage |
| Of the Severn sliding by. |
| I am the city of Gloucester to Worthing |
| or Bridgnorth to Morecambe Bay, |
| I am Worcester’s heart to Accrington |
| Or four tenths of the Pennine Way. |
| Two thirds of Wales’s border, |
| Three halves of Hadrian’s wall, |
| Twice ‘cross London and partway back |
| ‘Gherkin’, ‘Shard’ and all. |
| And I’m eight miles less than the M25, |
| My miles more mindful, you’ve no need to drive. |
| Me? I am one-oh-nine miles. |
| Part Two – What Am I? |
| Me? I am one-oh-nine miles; |
| I am more than one-oh-nine. |
| I am 17, the sections into which I’m divided. |
| And 6.4, the average miles of those 17. |
| I am 4.3, the miles from Ledbury to Holly Bush, |
| And also 8.2, the miles from Minsterworth to Gloucester. |
| I am 3, my offspring, my circular walks, |
| And I am 4, the counties through which I pass. |
| I am 84, my points of geological interest |
| And also 187, the way points along The Way. |
| I am 425, the height in meters of the Worcestershire Beacon, |
| And also 338, the meterage of its Herefordshire companion. |
| I am 680 million, the age of my oldest rocks |
| And also 200 million, the age of my youngest. |
| I am 450, the millennia since my gravels were laid, |
| And 17 once more, the volunteer Wardens who ward The Way. |
| Also, I am 10, the years since I came into existence. |
| I am villages and towns and a city, |
| Castles, a cathedral and churches. |
| I am apps and apparitions, cream teas and turkeys, |
| An obelisk and towers, steam trains and pubs. |
| I am cliffs and caves, cuttings and canals, |
| Faults and intrusions, meadows and mounds. |
| I am quarries and coalmines, bridges and tracks, |
| Escarpments and plateaus and floodplains. |
| I am forests and woodland, valleys and hills, |
| Springs and rivers and a world renowned bore. |
| I am cattle grids and kissing gates and lines crossing fields, |
| I am roads , bridleways and footpaths, |
| The ‘Ordinance Survey’ knows what I am. |
| I am Triassic and Jurassic, |
| I am Permian and Precambrian, |
| Cambrian and Carboniferous; |
| I am Silurian times two. |
| I’ve been ice and volcanoes and deserts, |
| I’ve been warm seas and rain forest. |
| I am sandstone and limestone, |
| Siltstone and mudstone. |
| I am granite and shale and sand, |
| Coal and gravel and quartz. |
| I am conglomerate and breccia. |
| I am these and so many others. |
| I am footprints and fossils. |
| I am bivalves and gastropods, |
| Brachiopods and corals, |
| Cephalopods and crinoids. |
| I am Dalmanites, the Sigel that shows you the way. |
| I am rocks and landscape and heritage. |
| I am knowledge and discovery and well-being. |
| Me? I am one-oh-nine miles, |
| What am I to you?
©David M Pamment 2019
|
4. Map and Resources Training Day
Interest has been expressed in us holding another iteration of our maps and resources training day, which has been delivered successfully three times in 2019. We cover access to publicly available electronic map resources, the maps and literature resources available at the EHT for members and affiliated group members, and access to definitive aerial photographs, modern and historical OS maps and geological maps with an EHT staff member. If you would like to attend a future day, please let Allison Tinsley know and we will set a mutually convenient date.
The next step for those who want to make the most of maps is to learn about a Geographic Information System (GIS). The freely available software QGIS has amazing capabilities and has been used extensively in the Herefordshire Ponds project. We plan to offer GIS training towards the end of the year for those who have completed the maps and resources training day.
5. Kington Walking Festival 19-22 September 2019
The Walking Festival returns for its eighth year, please see the link to the programme below:
https://www.kingtonwalks.org/images/Documents/2019_Festival_Brochure_vWebsite.pdf
6. More on Worcestershire River Terraces
The August newsletter mentioned the very brief exposure of a river terrace at Bevere, just north of Worcester. We referred to it as ‘the Worcester terrace’, which was at best misleading, for which we apologise.
The River Severn terrace deposits are referred as ‘Members’ of the Severn Valley Formation, and this is the Holt Heath Sand and Gravel Member. At Bevere, its base is about 8m above the river flood plain and it is 5 or more metres thick. Here, the outside bend of the river is actively cutting through the Mercia Mudstone bedrock, forming a very steep, 10m high bank, capped with the sand and gravel of the Holt Heath terrace. The bank is inaccessible and covered with trees, so that only the occasional landslide reveals the underlying deposits, visible from the far bank.
Here is a close-up of a small part of the Holt Heath Member at Bevere, captured before it was covered up.
River terraces are most obvious as features of the landscape, forming areas of flat land at different heights with relatively steep slopes between them. The landforms are numbered from the lowest upwards and of the six Severn terraces, three can be seen in the vicinity of Bevere weir. The exposure just described forms terrace 3 and is on the left (eastern) bank of the river a few hundred metres upstream from the weir.
The buildings of Bevere Green farm, just East of the weir, are on Terrace 2, 10m above the flood plain. This terrace was formed after the river had cut down through the Holt Heath member and through some of the underlying bedrock. As with all the terraces, the sand and gravel was deposited by fast flowing rivers as glaciers melted. This is the Worcester Member.
The Camp House Inn on the right bank of the river is located on Terrace number 1, lying only a few metres above the current flood plain. This terrace is composed of the Power House Member. It is the lowest and the most recently formed of all the terraces, with gravel deposited in fast flowing rivers from the last of the melting ice.
Note that the other river terrace mentioned in the August newsletter belongs to the separately-named River Avon terrace system.
Upcoming Events
7. WGCG Lecture Programme: 2019
Meetings are held on Wednesdays (usually 3rd of the month) and start at 7.30 p.m. in St Francis Church Hall, 110 Warwick Road, Kenilworth, CV8 1HL unless otherwise stated. Tea / coffee and biscuits are available beforehand from 7.00 p.m. Please check the WGCG website for any late, unforeseeable changes at http://www.wgcg.co.uk/talks/
- Wednesday 18th September 2019: Yorkshires Ancient Storms – Andy Howard
- Thursday 10th October 2019: AGM
- Wednesday 20th November 2019: ‘The Real Value of Microfossils’ – Haydon Bailey
8. Teme Valley Geological Society (TVGS) Talks
Please find details of forthcoming TVGS evening talks held in Martley Memorial Hall (MMH). Talks commence at 7.30pm, fees are £3 for non-members and £1 for members.
- Monday 16th September 2019: Members evening.
- Monday 21st October 2019: Prof. Yan Lavallee – Volcanoes and Experiments
- Monday 18th November 2019: TBC Dr Chris Davies – Powering the Earth’s Magnetic Field over Geological Time
- Monday 20th January 2020: Prof. Ian Fairchild – Caves, Caves’ Atmospheres and Caves Climates
For further information of the TVGS please visit www.geo-village.eu
9. Malvern U3A Geology Group
The Malvern U3A Geology Group meets on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at the Cube, Malvern, from 10.00 – 12.00 am. The entrance price is: £2.00.
For further information please see website: www.malvernu3a.org.uk/geology3/
For people who are members of the Malvern U3A and would like to develop skills which could be useful in identifying items below ground, there is now an Introduction to Dowsing group within Malvern U3A.
The group is run by Ced Jackson who set up Malvern Dowsers (now 10 years old), and meets once a month on a Tuesday afternoon in Malvern. For more information please contact Info@CedJackson.org (01684 560265).
10. Woolhope Club
The Woolhope Club Geology Section meetings to be held in the “Woolhope Room” of the Library in Broad Street Hereford at 6.00pm for 6.30pm until 8.00pm. For further information of the Woolhope Club please visit www.woolhopeclub.org.uk
- Friday 27th September 2019 – Paul Gannon on Snowdonia.
- Friday 25th October 2019- To be arranged.
- Saturday 2nd November 2019- Geologists Association (GA) Festival at University College London (UCL). Woolhope Club Members are most welcome. Note Saturday meeting.
- Friday 22nd November 2019 – Paul Olver: A Tale of Five Magmas: A Review of Planetary volcanism.
- Friday 13th December 2019 – Members’ Rock/Fossil Festival plus drinks in a nearby pub.
11. Black Country Geological Society (BCGS) Programme
BCGS indoor meetings are held at the Dudley Archives, Tipton Road, Dudley, DY1 4SQ with a 7.30 for 8.00 pm start unless stated otherwise. Visitors welcome, but there will be a charge of £1.00. For further details please see the website: http://bcgs.info
Friday 13 – Monday 16 September (Field Meeting): BCGS trip to Dorset. Led by the Dorset Geological Society. Organised spaces on this visit have now been filled. Any further memberswishing to attend will need to make their own arrangements and let the field secretary know.
Monday 16 September (Indoor Meeting): ‘How and why Earth’s land ice cover is changing’. Speaker: Dr Nicholas Barrand (Lecturer in Geosciences, University of Birmingham). The talk will explore the impact of these changes on global sea levels and downstream systems, utilising airborne and satellite remote sensing tools.
Saturday 5 October (Geoconservation Day): Saltwells Local Nature Reserve. Meet at the Nature Reserve car park (Grid ref: SJ 934 868) on Saltwells Lane at 10.30. Wear old work clothes, waterproofs and stout footwear or wellies. Please bring gloves and garden tools (hand brushes, trowels, loppers, secateurs, forks and spades if you have them). Either bring packed lunch or hot food can be acquired from the Saltwells Inn adjacent to the car park. Finish at 2.30.
Monday 21 October (Indoor Meeting): ‘A Geological Grand Tour of the Solar System’. Speaker: Andrew Lound. A tour of the solar system taking us on a journey from the sun to the far outreaches of the solar system, along the way visiting planets, moons, asteroids and comets. Illustrated with the very latest images and supplemented by music.
Saturday 2 November (Geoconservation Day): Details TBC.
Saturday 16 November (Field Meeting): An Introduction to Castle Hill. Led by Ian Beech (Wren’s Nest Nature Reserve). Meet at 10.00 in the Wren’s Nest wardens’ office, Fossil View, offWren’s Hill Road, Dudley, DY1 3SB. After tea/coffee, walk from the wardens’ base to Castle Hill viaBluebell Wood. We will be visiting managed and unmanaged sites, looking at outcrops and loggingareas with any findings. Many of the outcrops are similar to Wrens’ Nest so we should be able to makea comparison along with a general introduction to the site.
Monday 18 November (Indoor Meeting): ‘Minerals of the English Midlands’. Speaker: Roy Starkey. This talk explores the rich mineralogical heritage of the area, setting this into a regional,
historical and economic context, and tracing the development of mineral exploitation from earliest times to the present day. Mineral specimens from the area are recognised as being significant on a global scale, and are to be found in all major mineral collections, both within the UK and abroad.
Saturday 7 December (Geoconservation Day): Barrow Hill (TBC). Directed by the Barrow Hill LNR warden. Meet on Vicarage Lane off High Street, Pensnett (A4101), at the top end near to the nature reserve and St. Marks Church, at 10.30. The day will involve vegetation clearance in the East Quarry. Wear old clothing and stout boots or wellies. Please bring gloves and tools if you can, i.e. brushes, trowels, loppers, saws, rakes etc. Safety glasses and hard hats will be provided where necessary. Bring a packed lunch and hot drink. We will aim to finish around 2.30.
Monday 16 December (Indoor Meeting, 7.00 for 7.30 start): Members’ Evening and Christmas Social. This is our annual chance for members to share their geological experiences in a sociable atmosphere with a Christmas buffet provided by the Society. Contributions needed from you!
We need a few of you to volunteer to do a short presentation – on any topic with geological connections; or perhaps bring some of your specimens for admiration, discussion and identification. Please contact Keith Elder if you can contribute to this event: meetingsecretary@bcgs.info
If you have anything you would like to include in our next monthly update please forward to eht@worc.ac.uk by 4th October 2019.
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust, Geological Records Centre,
University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester, WR2 6AJ.
Tel: 01905 855184, Email: eht@worc.ac.uk
