Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/204

186 from from Hagley Park to Broomsgrove Lickey, forming the uppermost of the Permian beds, having always a southerly dip, and passing in that direction under the " pebble beds" or conglomerates of the New red sandstone. The breccia is frequently a very deep red, the fragments being cemented together as it were by a red marly substance. When well exposed it is seen to pass insensibly at its base into red marls, the fragments getting smaller and finally disappearing.

Underneath this are red sandstones and marls, and then a band of highly calcareous sandstone comes in, showing itself under Square coppice at the Lickey, of the limeworks of Newtown, near Hunnington, near St. Kenelm's chapel, and west of the parsonage in Hagley Park. Near the latter spot the pebble beds of the New red appear to overlap the trap) breccia and approach the calcareous band, running up nearly to the obelisk. They are then cut off by a fault which has been recently exposed in a new gravel pit, and the trappean breccia again comes out to form Wychbury Hill. A similar fault, bringing down the gravel beds to abut against the trappean breccia, is believed to terminate it at the Lickey Hill, just north of "the High House" (see Map). The lower beds of the formation, consisting of red and brown sandstones and marls, with one or two calcareous bands, spread over the country from Hagley Wood to Frankley, Kitwell, and the Lappal tunnel, the beds having, doubtless, a general slight inclination to the southward, with several minor flexures. Another patch of the trappean breccia caps the hill on which the well-known trees called Frankley Beeches stand.

From Frankley the dip appears to be south-south-east, and this inclination brings in the trappean breccia again in that direction, dipping in the lane north of Merrit brook at 20° to the south-south-east. Here all the Permian rocks are cut off to the eastward by a fault, believed to be an extension of the eastern boundary fault; and New red sandstone occupies the triangular district between Shenley Court and Weoley Castle. Brick red sandstone comes in south-east of the last-named trappean breccia, resting on it at one place apparently in a horizontal position, but in another appearing to dip from it at an angle of 15°. This sandstone, together with the Permian and other rocks between it and the Lickey, are all believed to be cut off by a fault running north-east and south-west, which will be described presently. From Frankley the Permian rocks extend northwards to the Lappal tunnel, and then, after being apparently interrupted by the Coal-measure tract running down to the Stonehouse, they occupy a broad band of country, extending northwards, between Oldbury and Smethwick, and thence by Great Barr to the ground between Barr Beacon and Hey Head. This Permian tract has already been described (pp. 11, 12, 177, and 178), when speaking of the Coal-measures as coal is worked through part of it.