Lavingtons Hole EarthCache
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Lavingtons Hole
Bridgnorth is among the most picturesque towns in England. However, the landscape which now draws tourists from all over the country owes much to the last ice age. Shropshire, but the influence
It may not be among the oldest parts of Shropshire, but the influence of Bridgnorth's geological history is pretty hard to miss - as anyone who's climbed the steps from Low Town to High Town will testify.
Not that the global significance of the Ice Age is the first thing that springs to mind when you're climbing the town's steep slopes!
Bridgnorth's bright red sandstone cliff dominates the town.
Not only does it give the town its distinctive two-tier plan, but many of the buildings (including the castle) have been built from the extremely soft material.
This area was formed during the Permian period, when Shropshire had moved to around 25 degrees north of the equator.
At that time Bridgnorth would have looked very like the Sahara desert. Huge sand dunes were baked as they were blown across a hot, dry landscape.
Looking at parts of Bridgnorth's cliff, you can even see where two massive sand dunes have been laid down, one on top of the other.
The different angles in the rock strata show how the wind blew the dunes in different directions as they were baked hard.
The red sand is held together very loosely by an iron oxide cement, which glues the individual grains together.
However, errosion has inevitably taken its toll on this very soft material. Parts of the cliff have been given extra support by bricks.
A few plants have also caused damage to the precarious cliff. Ivy roots are able to burrow into the loose structure of the sandstone and as it grows, it pulls down sections of rock.
The soft stone has also proved rather handy in the past. A number of caves have been easily carved from the sandstone... during the English Civil War a tunnel was dug here in the soft sandstone cliff,by the Parlaimentary forces, with the intention of filling it with explosives and blowing up the chaple above where all the munitions were stored
the Royalists surrendered and the tunnel was never used, this was called Lavingtons Hole, after Colonel Lavington who commanded the troops who dug the tunnel
Moving down to the River Severn it's worth noting that this only arrived in Bridgnorth at the end of the last Ice Age, around 12,500 years ago.
The Severn originally headed north towards the Dee, until ice edging in from Scotland and Wales blocked up the route.
Forced to find another course, the Severn and a huge volume of melt water cut its way through the Ironbridge Gorge and down through Bridgnorth.
The river is still very active in shaping our landscape. Not only does it continue to erode the surrounding area, it also regularly floods, as many Low Town residents will know.
To log the cache please E-Mail the answers to the following questions and upload a picture of you or your GPSr in front of Lavington's Hole logs without a photo will be deleted.
1) Estimate the height of the cliff face.
2) How long ago were the cliffs formed.
3) What is the depth of Lavingtons hole.
Additional Hints
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