Strain is estimated at the hinge and in one limb of an anticline by the measurement of phyllosilicate preferred orientation in the matrix of a nodular, calcareous slate at three-dimensional grid points. We calculate an average strain for each and also the average shapes of the calcite-cemented nodules, which we explain by a strain distinct from that of the matrix acting on originally oblate spheroidal concretions. Cleavage folia show symptoms of stress solution, and the nodular concretions are capped by strain shadows almost free of cleavage; the nodules were stiffer than the matrix during most of the deformation history. Near the concretions the strain is too inhomogeneous at a small scale to allow the resolution of details of the strain field.The local strain we take to be the compound of the average and a perturbing strain. The strain perturbations are not random but statistically share their intermediate principal axis; these axes are less tightly clustered in the hinge than in the limb. The axes of local rotations that are concomitant with the perturbing strains also have only a slight preferred orientation in the hinge, but they are statistically aligned in the limb. There, all axes lie near the cleavage great circle, and they cluster near the fold axis. The regularity of the rotation axes indicates a history of simple, flexural shear in the limb, with the local rotations caused by retardations or accelerations of the shear rate near stiff nodules. Comparisons between the mean strain in hinge and limb, strained nodule shapes, strain perturbations and perturbing rotations allow recognition of several distinct episodes of strain: (1) 40% compaction; (2) 9% homogeneous bedding-parallel contraction; (3) buckling; and (4) a further 33% bedding-parallel contraction in the hinge and 37% approximately bedding-normal contraction in the limb. Volume loss was greatest near the concretions, both during compaction and later by stress solution; the limb lost 13% more volume than the hinge.