Excursion to Croydon and Riddlesdown. Saturday, June 19th, 1880 - Geologists' Association excursion

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From: A record of excursions made between 1860 and 1890. Edited by Thomas Vincent Holmes , F.G.S. and C. Davies Sherborn, F.G.S. London: Edward Stanford [For the Geologists’ Association], 1891. Source: Cornell University copy on the Internet Archive (Public domain work)

Director: J. Logan Lobley, F.G.S. (Proc. Vol. vi. p. 372.)

On arriving at East Croydon Station the members of the Association were met by Mr. John Flower. The well-known extensive gravel-pits in Fairfield were first visited, and the fine sections of Valley gravels here exposed were carefully inspected. The Director and Mr. Flower explained the sections, and drew attention to the presence of the Oldhaven pebbles, so abundant now at Shirley and Croham Hurst, and to the course of the Wandle having changed so considerably as to leave here high and dry about twenty feet thickness of its old deposit. Mr. Flower was not aware of any organic remains having been found here, but at Thornton Heath an elephant's tusk, preserved by a coating of clay, had been obtained.

The underlying Woolwich and Reading beds are not now exposed as formerly in Chichester Road, but the presence of their clay-beds is indicated by springs and by the lake in the grounds of Park Hill House. By the kindness of Dr. Strong, of Croydon, the party were enabled to assemble on the top of the Water Tower. The day being fine the physical features of the district were seen to advantage; the hills of Shirley and Croham Hurst, and the Banstead Chalk Downs rising boldly to the south and west, and on the north the great valley of the Thames running from west to east.

At the foot of Water Tower Hill a very interesting section shows the erosion of the Thanet Sands almost to a feather edge, resting as usual on the Chalk capped with green-coated flints. There is thus seen the extreme southern edge of the London Tertiary Basin.

Croham Hurst, a mile to the south, was next visited. The summit of this hill, 477 feet above the sea level, is an outlier of Thanet and Oldhaven beds, the well-rounded black pebbles of which, by rolling down, cover a considerable part of the steep slopes. So steep indeed is one side that it is called Breakneck Hill. Thence the party made their way by the Brighton road to the Chalk-pit opposite to the "Royal Oak," famed for the granite boulder once found in it, and attributed to ice action in the Cretaceous Period.

The party subsequently proceeded, by way of Purley, to Riddlesdown, skirting the fine Chalk valley of Kenley, along which, after exceptionally wet seasons, the Bourne river flows. After the sections of the Chalk exposed in the excavations along the hill had been seen the train for London was taken at Warlingham Station.

[An excursion to Caterham and Croydon took place in 1869, during the period when Proceedings were not issued. The next visit to Caterham was on the occasion of an excursion to Caterham and Oxted, April 19th, 1870, of which there is a brief report (Proc., vol. ii., p. 28).

An excursion to Caterham Junction and Riddlesdown took place on July 1st, 1871, the Director being J. Logan Lobley. A report of it may be seen in Proc., vol. ii., p. 274; but as the country visited is fully described in the account of the excursion to Riddlesdown and Croydon on April 17th, 1875, with the addition of a list of the local fossils, no extracts from the report of the excursion of 1871 are necessary.]

References

Maps

Ordnance Survey. Geological. Sheets 6 and 8. 8s. 6d. each.

New Ordnance Survey. Sheet 270. 1s.

Stanford's Geological Map of London. 5s.

Books

W. Whitaker, Geology of London (Geol. Surv.), 8vo, London, 2 vols. 1889. 11s.

C. Evans, On some Sections of Chalk between Croydon and Oxted, etc. 8vo, London (Geol. Assoc.) 1870. 1s. [In this paper there is a continuous section through Purley, Riddlesdown, Whiteleaf, Warlingham, Marden Park, and Oxted; but it is too large to reprint in this volume.]

J. Morris, Lecture on the Geology of Croydon. 8vo, Croydon (Croydon Microsc. Club). 1875. 1s.

H. M. Klaassen, On the Pebbly and Sandy Beds overlying the Woolwich and Reading Series on and near the Addington Hills. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xi. 1890.

See also Geological Record, 1880-1884, vol. i. index, p. 504.