River Ouse Research Articles

The Staunches and Navigation of the Little Ouse River

(1955). The Staunches and Navigation of the Little Ouse River. Transactions of the Newcomen Society: Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 207-219.

Note on the gravel deposit from which the Piltdown skull was obtained

The age of the Piltdown skull has long been a subject of intermittent controversy and it is a question which can only be determined from palaeontological data or other evidence inherent in the fossil itself, such as that provided by fluorine fixation; details of river-terrace forms and levels as related to the present-day thalweg of the River Ouse, and of materials comprising the gravel in which the skull was found, offer little assistance. In the literature on the subject some misunderstanding has arisen as to the height of the gravel deposit in which the skull was found relative to the present-day River Ouse; height above the river having to some extent been used to date the fossil. According to levels taken from the six-inch scale Ordnance Survey map, Sussex 40 NE., the 100-foot contour above Ordnance Datum cuts the surface of the gravel spread, the highest part of which lies about 103 feet O.D. while the lowest part is about 97 feet O.D. The nearest part of the River Ouse, at Gold Bridge, is between 45 and 50 feet O.D. Thus the terrace is is about 50–55 feet above the nearest part of the river. Dawson (1913, p. 119), however, stated that the terrace lies on a plateau above the 100-foot contour, with an average height of about 120 feet above O.D.; a statement true of the plateau, but not of the gravel terrace, which is the thing that matters. Again, he gave the height of the gravel spread above

Reclamation of Tidal Lands

IN the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts of July 15, 1938, there is published the paper read before a meeting of the Society on February 23 by Mr. Oscar Borer, chief engineer of the River Ouse Catchment Board, in which he gave a survey of the reclamation of tidal lands which has been proceeding on both sides of the North Sea. In a brief note on the geological history of this sea, the author shows that, whether it be accounted for by one theory or another, its water holds in suspension a fine sand or silt which was ground to its present state during the glacial period. This silt only settles in quiet protective bays where the flood water can come to rest ; the aim of the work of reclamation is therefore to create those favourable conditions requisite for the extension of the land from the enormous stock of silt provided by Nature. Nature not only provides the material but also constitutes the agency by which the main operations are carried out. Here the engineer exercises his highest function in studying the methods of Nature and in directing them so that they benefit mankind.

Early Settlement at Runcton Holme, Norfolk

The antiquities here described came to light in the course of commercial gravel digging, but though we lack stratigraphical information they appear to be of sufficient importance in themselves to be worthy of accurate record. It is entirely due to the efforts and care of Mr. Ivan Thatcher, of King's Lynn, that they were recovered at all and we would like to thank him for the great trouble he has taken to see that as much as possible became available for study. Through his generosity the greater part of the Beaker pottery and also the figured sherds of the Early Iron Age and Romano-British periods are now in the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge. Messrs.F. B. and G. W. Gorbould, the lessees of the pit, have co-operated patiently in the preservation of Antiquities from the site, and Mr. J. R. Gorboud has also been very helpful. We have also to thank Miss Feetham for placing a Beaker (No. 2) on deposit in the same museum. Mr. Cockle of Lynn, kindly allowed the jet bead to be drawn. Finally we have to thank Mr. L. C. G. Clarke, F.S.A., and Miss O' Reilly of the Cambridge Museum for granting facilities for studying the objects in their charge.Runcton Holme is situated some six miles due south of King's Lynn and about a mile to the east of the river Ouse. The exact position of the site is shown by Fig. 1. It consists of a low gravel promontory averaging about 20 feet above O.D. (Newlyn) and overlooking a vast expanse of Fenland. The marginal character of the site is illustrated by the fact that, but for the embanking of the Ouse, high spring tides would approach it quite closely. There appear to have been two main periods of early settlement on the site, Peterborough-Beaker and Early Iron Age-Romano-British, with an interval roughly speaking of a millenium when, so far as we can tell, it was abandoned. Whether this gap is a real one and whether in which case it was due to some natural cause, we cannot on the evidence before us decide. It will, however, be instructive to observe whether other sites discovered in the future on this gravel edge reveal a similar break in human occupation. The objects dating from the first occupation are briefly described in this paper, while the later occupation which accounts for the bulk of the archaeological material is dealt with by Mr. Christopher Hawkes, F.S.A. , of the British Museum.

Pebbles of Quartzite near Piltdown, Sussex

In July of 1929 I visited the classic locality of Piltdown under the guidance of Sir A. Smith Woodward. After paying homage at the tomb of Eoanthropus we descended from the plateau to the low-level gravel terrace that flanks the flood-plain of the River Ouse. At a place known locally as Sharp's Bridge (marked on the accompanying map by a cross) there is a new but already extensive gravel pit. A spot-level on the map near the pit gives the approximate level of the top of the gravel terrace as 38 o.d.; the face of the pit is dug to a depth of from 8 to 10 feet below this level, and seems to reach down to about the level of saturation determined by the water of the river.

Side Spillways for Regulating Diversion Canals

In 1022, the Hydro-Electric Department of the Government of Tasmania completed a diversion channel of 450 sec-ft. capacity to convey water from the Upper Ouse River, at Liawenee, to the Great Lake storage. The intake of this channel is in a deep and narrow gorge where a low weir, only about 100 ft. long, suffices to divert the normal flow into a flume, 1/2 mile in length, built on a rock bench excavated along the wall of the gorge. From the outlet of the flume a canal, part of which is excavated in earth, conveys the water a farther distance of 5 miles where it is discharged into the Great Lake.

Bronze Age find in Cheshire

The geology of Piltdown.—A memoir on the geology of the country near Lewes has just been issued by H.M. Stationery Office, price 2s. 6d., with coloured drift-map separate, price 2s. It has been written for the Geological Survey by Mr. H. J. Osborne White, and contains a sectional diagram of the deposits at Barkham near Piltdown, showing the position of the skull; also a diagram by Mr. F. H. Edmonds showing the slope of the river Ouse and that of the Piltdown terrace about 70 ft. above it. The remains of Eoanthropus are held to be contemporary with the formation of the Barkham gravel in the early Pleistocene; and ‘at present the balance of opinion favours Sir Arthur Smith Woodward's interpretation’ of the individual as belonging to a distinct genus of the Hominidae. Piddinghoe and Rodwell are the only other sites in the area that have yielded palaeolithic implements. The incapacity to spell Cervus elaphus correctly seems to be shared by the official printers (p. 66).

Commodus-Hercules in Britain

In 1918 the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge acquired with Professor Babington's collection a hoard of some-what unusual objects. They were found in 1857 in Willingham Fen, Cambridgeshire, south of the River Ouse or Old West River, on a spot, which is now no longer fen but a field known as ‘The Hempsalls,’ two and a half miles north-west of Cottenham and eight miles north of Cambridge. They had been placed in a wooden box, no doubt for concealment in a convenient place. Their curious character makes them worthy of more detailed notice than they have hitherto received.

The Drainage of the River Ouse Basin

The Drainage of the River Ouse Basin

Palæolithic Man

THE fossil human skull and mandible to be described by Mr. Charles Dawson and Dr. Smith Woodward at the Geological Society as we go to press is the most important discovery of its kind hitherto made in England. The specimen was found in circumstances which seem to leave no doubt as to its geological age, and the characters it shows are themselves sufficient to denote its extreme antiquity. It was met with in a gravel which was deposited by the river Ouse near Piltdown Common, Fletching, Sussex, at a time when that river flowed at a level eighty feet above its present course.

GEOLOGICAL NOTES ON A DEEP BORING NEAR SELBY

Read November, 1907. Manuscript received, 13th December, 1907. The writer believes there has been more than one deep boring put down in the neighbourhood of the old town of Selby, but in some instances no record has been published of the results obtained, either on account of carelessness or because the undertakers of the boring wished to keep the information obtained to themselves. Fortunately, in the present instance, the owner of the land on which the boring was situated, the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Londesborough, who bore the expense of the experiment, has made no such stipulation, and as a careful record of the strata passed through in the boring was kept, the information is open to those who may be interested in such an undertaking. The results from a practical point of view are not insignificant, and from a geological standpoint most interesting. The position of the borehole can be seen by reference to the map accompanying these notes (Fig. 1). It is situated towards the south-east of the Great Plain of York on the right bank of the River Ouse, three miles east-south-east of Selby. As is well known the stratigraphy of the Plain of York is obscure, the surface being covered for the most part with alluvial drift which, although valuable and useful from a farmer’s and landowner’s standpoint, is often somewhat disconcerting to the geologist. In the immediate neighbourhood of Selby, however, two landmarks stand out, known as Brayton Barf and Hambleton Hough. These two ...

Notes on some Ouse River fossil impressions

Notes on some Ouse River fossil impressions

On some Sections in the Liassic and Oolitic Rocks of Yorkshire

The upheaval of the Penine Anticlinal separating Lancashire and Yorkshire in a direction north and south; and the dislocation of the strata caused by the Great Craven Faults running east and west, have not only influenced the physical features of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but have also been instrumental in moulding the character of the country towards the eastern boundary of the County. The Carboniferous series were forced into a semi-circular basin, with a general depression towards the south-east, the Coal Measures were crushed and fractured in every direction, and innumerable faults exist as the result of this action. A long period of depression followed, and the several beds of the Millstone Grits and Coal Measures were denuded to a more or less regular surface, over which the Magnesian Limestones and other members of the Permian Series were unconformably deposited. They dip towards the east and disappear under the Keuper and Bunter Sandstones and Marls. The latter are in turn hidden beneath the thick glacial beds and river deposits which form the surface of the extensive plain of the river Ouse. On the eastern side of the plain of the Ouse, the physical conformation of the country assumes a lofty character; the Liassic series of the North Riding, surmounted by the sandstones of the Inferior Oolites, give rise to an extensive area of undulating moorlands reaching from Saltburn, in the north, to Emsley, Pickering, and Goathland Moors, in the south; towards Cloughton and Scarborough the sandstones are obscured by ...

Our Book Shelf

THIS book is dated 1887. It would have disgraced 1862. On the first three pages a volcano is defined as “a mountain from which smoke, flames, ashes, and lava are thrown,” the words “continent” and “hemisphere” are treated as synonymous, and the unqualified statement is made that Yorkshire is the basin of the River Ouse. On p. 94 the tributary States of India are styled indepen dent, and on p. 137 the warm water which drifts towards the Pole is placed “low ”(deep?). The mass of the book is of the old vicious type—composed of lists of names and disconnected remarks; and what remains is a dis orderly compilation of statements intended to be scientific, but from which the essential point is often omitted. The maps are numerous, but not of a high order. On some of them dials are inserted, showing; relative time; but why this should be done for European countries where the difference of time from Greenwich time is counted in minutes, and yet not for the United States, India, or Australia, is not quite obvious. The book is careless and ignorant, and its plan radically bad. We hope that teachers will not be deceived by the title, and imagine that they have here a shortened form of “Long-mans' School Geography” by Chisholm. Longmans' Shilling Geography. (Longmans, 1887.)

On Glacial Sections at York, and their Relation to Later Deposits

The various deposits of boulder-clay, sands, gravels, brick-earths, warp and peat, near York, have been sufficiently exposed by building operations, brick fields, and gravel pits to show this very simple relation. Resting upon the deep-seated Triassic rocks lies the irregular boulder-clay, which forms all the higher ground, reaching in Severn’s Mount to 100 feet above the river Ouse. Where the stream escapes from between its undulations, the top-most layers have been washed and re-arranged as glacial gravels. Its hollows have been levelled up with the sediment thus produced, forming the brick-earths and warpy clays; whilst peat deposits have completed the work where the depth, elevation, or remoteness of the original hollow prevented the brick-earths from accomplishing that end. An examination of Plate XXIII., Fig. 1, will show the following relations. The glacial beds form the chief feature of the region, not only monopolising all the ground more than about 30 feet above the Ouse level (or 50 to 60 feet above that of the sea), but also forming extensive low-lands, except close by the river. Where these are sandy, and rest on clay, healthy commons still remain, such as Tilmire, Langwith, Strensall, and Riccall. At present, unfortunately, there are no good sections in the glacial beds, but their character can be made out near the New Goods Station, at several points round the Mount, especially on Holgate Hill, and also at the Poppleton junction of the Harrogate and North lines, about two miles out. But, before discussing former exposures, it ...

Erratum

In Mr. Dakyns' letter in the Geol. Mag. January, 1879, p. 46, line 11 from bottom, the words river base should have been river Ouse.

Description of the Hydraulic Swing Bridge for the North Eastern Railway over the River Ouse Near Goole

Description of the Hydraulic Swing Bridge for the North Eastern Railway over the River Ouse Near Goole

On some recent Discoveries of Flint Implements of the Drift in Norfolk and Suffolk with observations on the Theories accounting for their Distribution

I n June 1866 I had the honour to lay before the Society a paper upon some flint implements then lately found at Thetford in the valley of the Little Ouse river†; I have lately occupied myself with further investigations of the same district, the results of which, are, I trust, of sufficient interest to justify me in bringing them to the notice of the Society. The localities which I have now examined are four in number. In each of these flint implements have been found, and in several of them in great abundance, corresponding in the main, as well in fashion as in material, with those of St. Acheul, Thetford, Salisbury, and Icklingham, which are now so well known. Broomhill .—The first deposit which I have to notice is found at Broomhill, on the north bank of the river, about five miles from Thetford, and two from Santon Downham mentioned in my former paper. The implements, which are usually much rolled and worn, and are often stained to a chocolate-colour, are here found in a gravel-pit about 350 feet from the river-bank. They are usually met with in a bed of ferruginous flint-gravel about 2 feet thick, resting immediately on the surface of the chalk, and 5 or 6 feet above the level of the river. This gravel, which is very coarse and not much rolled, contains large flint nodules, some of them weighing over a hundredweight, and is mixed with rounded quartzite pebbles and rolled fragments of chalk. It is

The river ouse

The river ouse

On some Flint Implements lately found in the Valley of the Little Ouse River, at Thetford, Norfolk

I n consequence of the recent discoveries of flint implements of the St. Acheul type at Hoxne on the river Waveney, and at Icklingham on the Larke, it seemed to me probable that they would also be found in the valley of the neighbouring river known as the Little Ouse—a stream which, rising at Lopham, in the marsh in which the Waveney has also its source, flows in a direction nearly parallel with the course of the Larke (distant about nine miles), and, running from Thetford to Brandon, falls into the Great Ouse between Ely and Lynn. During the last two or three years I have frequently looked for these implements in the gravel-beds on the banks of this river; but my search was for some time unsuccessful, having been chiefly directed to the left bank, on which they very rarely occur. About six months since, however, several of them were found in the gravel-pits on the right bank by a labourer who had gone from Icklingham to work at Thetford. They were taken by him to Mr. Henry Prigg of Bury St. Edmunds, who at once recognized their true character and their close resemblance to those found in the valley of the Somme. In December last Mr. John Evans and Mr. Prigg found amongst the gravel several other good specimens, both of the oval and pointed forms; and within the last three months I have been able to procure upwards of fifty others. Mr. Evans and Mr. Prestwich have also