Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/60

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A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE written — but in a more general way — on the same subject ; ** while the Rev. P. B. Brodie, in addition to publishing a paper mentioning the character- istic fossils of the Silurian rocks of the district,*' has dealt with, in consider- able detail, those beds which are now grouped together as the Temeside Stage. The May Hill Sandstone is of the usual character in this district, but except in the sides of the lanes in the Haugh Wood and when excavations are made for draining or building purposes, is rarely seen. A few fossils have been obtained from loose blocks on the hill-side above Scutterdine Wood, and it was near here — on the south side of the Mordiford fault at Mangerdine — that its strata were pierced in a futile search for coal. In the Woolhope district the Woolhope Limestone is a very important rock, being much used for road-metal not only within the valley itself, but in the surrounding lowland. Quarries are numerous, but the best-known are those at Scar Hill, Woolhope, and Scutterdine, near Mordiford. That at Scutterdine yields many fossils, including Homalonotus delphinocephalus and Illaenus barriensis ; '" while the Actinoceras baccatum. described by Dr. Henry Woodward, probably came from the same place. ^^ Graptolites are said to have been procured from this rock in this neighbourhood, but they are certainly not numerous.^^ The Woolhope Limestone environs — except where cut out by the Mordiford fault — the May Hill Sandstone inlier of the Haugh Wood, and forms the slope that leads down to the level expanse where the soft Wenlock Shales prevail. This level stretch is easily descried from Adam's Rocks, bounded on the north-east by the mural ridge formed by the outcrop of the Wenlock Lime- stone. The escarpment of this rock is notched with incipient valleys called ' Cockshoots ' in these parts, but otherwise extends more or less uninter- ruptedly around the Woolhope Valley. The white rock visible through the trees to the east-north-east of Adam's Rocks shows where the once actively worked and, to the fossil collector, far-famed Dormington Quarries are situated. Weathered corals, for example, Halysites catenularia and Favosites gothlandicus, and many brachiopods, however, may even now be picked up on the old spoil-heaps. Can wood, Winslow Mill, Hyde, Lindels, and Common Hill above Fownhope, are localities where there are sections of the Limestone. The beds at Hyde are particularly fossiliferous ; but from a tectonic standpoint the section at Lindels is the most interesting, because there the section cuts across the place where the ridges of Limestone conjoin, so that an anticlinal fold is seen. Unfortunately faults somewhat compUcate the ground. As in the Malvern district, so here, the Wenlock Limestone is frequently coarsely oolitic, and often the nuclei of the oolite granules can be seen without the aid of a lens. The Lower Ludlow Shales require little comment, being similar to their equivalents in the Ludlow, Huntington, and Malvern districts. The beds are seldom exposed except in lanes ; but from exposures on the hill-side <« Trans. Woolhope Nat. F. C. 1891, p. 164. " Ibid. 1868 (1869), pp. 144-7. '»Ibid. 1 89 1 (1 894), p. 160. Geol. Mag. 1868. ^ Trans. Woolhope Nat. F. C. 1852, p. 18. 16