Kellys_Berks_Bucks&Oxon_1915_0031.jpg

D IR E C T O R Y .]

B E R K S H IR E .

blow : they are embedded in a brownish loam ; above this are W inkfield, a place three and a half miles west-south-west of
sandy clays passing up into stiff blue and brown c la y ; this Windsor C astle ; the strata passed through w e re : London
form ation has a broad outcrop in Berkshire. There is a C la y, 136 feet; Reading Beds, 73 feet; Upper Chalk, 329
good section in Shaw brick-kiln, north of Newbury. feet; Chalk Rock, 8 feet; Middle C halk, 169 fe e t; Lower
Eastwards of Beading these clays occupy a district Chalk, 219 f e e t ; Upper Greensand, 31 feet ; G ault, 264
gradually widening from 3 or 4 to 10 or 15 miles in feet; and Low er Greensand, to 9 feet: T otal Depth, 1,243
breadth, over which are scattered large outlying masses of feet. A plentiful supply of soft water was obtained from
rocks presently to be described. Brick-yards and railw ay the Lower Greensand, and though the w ater contained a
cuttings afford alm ost the only sections of the London little common salt, it was barely sufficient to affect even the
Clay, as at Sonning, Windsor, Englefield, Frilsham &c. m ost delicate palate.
Pectunculus decussatus and Ditrupaplana are characteristic
shells.
S u r f a c e D e p o s i t s . — Our exam ination of the strata at
any point is often interfered w ith by the presence of beds
I I.— U p p e r E o c e n e F o r m a t i o n :— The Bagshot B eds.— of gravel, brick-earth &c. m any feet thick, which cover over
T he Bagshot Beds are sandy, form ing ranges of barren and hide the underlying rocks. The Chalk, for exam ple, is
heath-covered hills in the south tmd south-east of the often covered w ith a s tiff brown and red clay full of unworn
county : sections and fossils are equally r a r e : they form flints. This would seem to be (in part at least) the residue
the high grounds of Coldash and B ucklebury Commons, left by the rem oval of the carbonate of lim e from the
north of the K e n n e t: south of th at river they extend from C halk, b y the chem ical action of rain-w ater charged with
Inkpen Common by Greenham Heath to the commons of carbonic acid ; this “ clay with flin ts” is well seen in the
Tadley, Silchester and Burghfield; then we come to the road cu ttin g south of Rem enham . Another possible origin
valley of the Loddon, where the beds have been denuded. of this surface deposit is th at it is a survivin g rem nant of
C rossing this gap we find ourselves on the western end of the Reading Beds, which contain clays som ewhat sim ilar in
the main Bagshot mass near Finchampstead and W oking­ character. Of brick-earth there is not much ; some m ay be
ham , and it continues by A scot race-course to E gham in seen near Cook ham.
S urrey : south of this line we pass over some clayey beds,
known as Middle Bagshot or Bracklesham Beds, and
The Flint-G ravels occur at high levels, as at Pebble Hill,
ascending Eastham pstead Plain find ourselves standing south of K in tbury, and often capping the hills of Bagshot
upon the northern extrem ity of the well-known Chobham Sand ; or at low levels, as from the foot of Enborne Hill to
Ridges, formed of the loose Upper Bagshot Sands.
Newbury, and on both sides of the Thames.

G-ravel-pit on Inkpen Common, showing the “ high-level gravel,” composed of sub-angular flints.

a W hite angular flint gravel.

b Brown flint gravel, containing large blocks of grey-w ether sandstone.

c Lower Ba^shot Sand.

S tanding here on the latest formed of the stratified rocks | A lluvium .— In form er times the river Kennet deposited
which constitute the county of Berks, we should, in m uch mud for about a quarter of a m ile on either side of its
im agination, sink a deep borehole and picture it to ourselves present course : this now form s valuable water-meadows,
as passing in succession through all the beds of rock we alw ays green. Beds of peat occur in it, from 5 to 15 feet
have named until, at a depth of perhaps 2,500 feet, it thick ; this peat is largely dug at N ew bury, and when burnt
entered the identical form ation — the Oxford clay— which the ashes form a valuable fertilizer, probably from the
we found occupying the surface of the county in the north­
quan tity of gypsum th ey contain.
west corner near Buscot.
In the m useum of the N ewbury
Institution, there is a fine speci­
A well sunk at W okingham passed through London Clay,
men of th e skull and horns of
263 fe e t; Reading Beds, 54 feet; Sand 16 fe e t; and
B os primigenius, a large extinct
pierced the Chalk for 64 feet, obtaining a good supply of
species of ox, which were dug out
water from the last-named rock.
of the peat in H am Marsh. In
a large excavation close to Read­
G r e y -w e t h e r s o r S a r s e n
S t o n e s . — Blocks of a hard
ing a fine section of old riversandstone are frequently found on the surface of the Chalk,
gravels
and loams is exposed, in
&c. ; they are used for building and for m ending roads.
which Prof. E. B. I’oulton has
They would appear to be consolidated masses of either the
found trun ks of trees and bones
Reading Beds or the Bagshot Sands, which have been let
and teeth of such extinct anim als
down and left behind, as it were, by the washing aw ay of
as the m am m oth, the woolly rhithe looser m atter in which they were once embedded (see
section of gravel-p it given above). The Sarsens produce
good road metal and an excellent building stone ; Windsor
Castle, indeed, is built of this m aterial.
E c o n o m ic G e o l o g y . — Like
stemmed and barbed the other counties bordering the
D e e p B o r i n g a t W i n k f i e l d . — Since the introduction of
Flint
arrow-head,
found
in
Tham
es, Berkshire is not noted
the “ Diamond Boring M achine,” about the year 1870, a burial-mound on Lam• ___ ,
m any boreholes have been put down in different parts of bourn Down, Berkshire, and
. . . I mlner!Jl w ea lth : the
England (m ostly in search of either coal or w ater), to depths now in the British Museum, mottled plastic clays of the
ing Beds are, however, largely
exceeding, in a few cases, even 3,000 feet. Of such bore­
holes, the only im portant one, as regards depth, hitherto worked for brick-m aking. The following figures for the
executed in Berkshire was m ade in 1894, for w ater at year 1912 are extracted from M ines a n i Quarries, but they
do not include any excavations which are less than 20 feet
in depth.

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