Walk from Church

Geological walk from Cradley Church

This route is published at explore.osmaps.com. There are several guides for walks from Cradley, available from the Village Hall Heritage Centre on Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons.

Malvern U3A Geology group have a walk to explore the geology in and around Mathon. The circular walk of about 2 ½ miles starts at Mathon Church but can be joined from Cradley at Cockshot Hill Quarry. This is also point (10) on the 9 mile circular ‘Mathon and the Malvern Hills’ Geopark way walk.

The Route.

From the eastern end of Rectory Lane follow the footpath south east over the bridge, turning south along the meadow into Lumbridge Wood. Turn right, south over the wooden footbridge in memory of Charlie Horne and after the field gate turn left east along the fence to the outcrop.

The outcrop is probably Aymestry Limestone - Limestone and mudstone, interbedded. Sedimentary bedrock formed between 427.4 and 425.6 million years ago during the Silurian period. A sample showing the indent of a Brachiopod is on the geology display in Cradley Church.

The field to the south has ‘slumping’ ridges as a result of landslip. This can be seen more convincingly as you approach the outcrop along the edge of the meadow and as you retrace west along the top of the bank. As you pass the field gate turn south west over the meadow keeping the fenced coppice to port. The quarry is on the track just south of the white house.

Cockshot Hill Quarry is shown on the geology map as being in a small region of Aymestry Limestone closely bounded on each side by Lower and Upper Ludlow Shale. The appearance of the quarry rock is that of dirty limestone but it also has a ‘shaley’ appearance. The quality of the rock is poor but has been used on the track to the east as it enters High Grove Wood to create a turning area. The limestone is full of small fossils (mainly Brachiopods, but see also the display in Cradley Church) which would have been deposited on the edge of a warm tropical sea when this part of the Earth’s crust was about 30 deg south of the equator. This sea was known as the Iapetus Ocean which later disappeared as a result of Plate Tectonic action (Silurian). This same action resulted in the building of the mountains of North Wales and the Lake District.

The Quarry is also on a substantial fault line (Colwall Fault) with a vertical displacement of around 500 metres. We observed a distinct east to west ‘drop line’ of several metres in the terrain corresponding closely to the fault line shown on the geology map.

Return to Cradley by walking back north to the top of Netherleigh Lane, west past the brick farmhouse and immediately right for the footpath. Turn left through the garden/driveway and then right round the hedge following the footpath back to Rectory Lane.