Excursion to Higham, Kent. June 18th, 1881 - Geologists' Association excursion

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: W. Whitaker, F.R.S. (Report by the Director). (Proc. Vol. vii. p. 189.)

The object of this excursion was to examine some cuttings on the railway through the hundred of Hoo, which have laid open good sections of the Lower Tertiary beds.

The members assembled at Higham Station, the Rev. C. H. Fielding, of Higham, kindly placing his knowledge of the country at their service. Progress was also much aided by Mr. H. Russel, of Cliffe, by whose good offices the party was carried along the line by a contractor's engine and truck.

It may be better to describe the cuttings from west to east, without regard to the order in which they were actually seen, merely remarking that the district is part of the slight trough between the Thames and the Medway, and is bounded on the south by a wooded range of London Clay hills, and on the north by the marshes of the Thames, interrupted by the rise of the Chalk at Cliffe.

The new railway leaves the North Kent line some three miles E. of Gravesend, passes at first over a small flat of river-gravel, and then crosses the Canal, where a good deal of peat, with remains of trees, has been found, to an island in the marsh, west of Higham. Here there is a small cutting in brown London Clay. The line then runs over the marshes for more than a mile, until near Cliffe Rectory, just to the south of which is a long and deep cutting excavated in Thanet Sand, and very wet at the bottom. In the middle of this sand are seen here and there signs of slight erosion, or of gentle current bedding, a most unusual thing in this division of the Lower London Tertiaries. The next cutting eastward is small, and seems to be in the same sand; but the party did not stop to examine it.

The chief cutting is through the hill eastward of Cooling Court, and it shows the whole of the beds from the bottom of the London Clay to the top of the Thanet Sand. Owing to the westerly slope of the line, and to the slight easterly dip, the lowest beds are cut into only towards the west, whilst at the east the Shelly clay of the Woolwich Beds sinks to the level of the rails. The Beds are as follows and they occur in even succession without any erosions:

At the eastern end of the cutting there is a mass of brown brick-earth, probably the result of the wash of the hill. Many fossils were collected from the Oldhaven Sand; but it is to be feared that few were successfully carried home, on account of their perishable nature.

A small unfinished cutting, a little further east, is in sand, which probably forms part of the bed beneath the shelly clay.

After tea the party strolled into the combined cutting and pit at Higham Station, and noticed the junction of the Thanet Beds and the Chalk, thus continuing and completing the downward procession of the Tertiary Series. A persistent layer of flint through the midst of the Chalk was also observed.

[An excursion to Higham, F. C. J. Spurrell being Director, took place on June 22nd, 1889. (See Proc.. vol. xi. p. 72.)]

References

Maps

Ordnance Survey. Geological. Sheet 1 S.E. 3s.

New Ordnance Survey.. Sheet 272.. Is.

Books

W. Whitaker, "The Geology of the London Basin," 8vo, London (Geol. Survey), 1872. 13s.

F. C. J. Spurrell, "Embankments of the Estuary of the Thames," Archaol. Journal, vol. xlii., 1885, p. 269.