The Early Pleistocene Evolution of North-Eastern Leicestershire and Parts of Adjacent Counties

The Sub-drift Surface in the Vicinity of South Witham Since Kellaway and Taylor read their paper, much additional information has become available regarding the configuration of that section of the drift-filled channel lying between Market Overton in the west and Castle Bytham in the east. The channel now has no surface expression, being filled with glacial detritus to the level of the surrounding bedrock plateau, but numerous boreholes which have been sunk by the companies working the Northamptonshire Ironstone permit a relatively reliable reconstruction of the sub-drift relief (Fig. I). Since the channel constitutes a large 'wash-out' in the continuity of the ironstone, deep boreholes along its centre line are few in number, but towards the margins, several hundred records testify to the steep bounding walls, a thickness of over one hundred feet of drift frequently being encountered within a quarter of a mile of bedrock outcrops. The occasional deep boreholes nearer the centre line provide an indication of the maximum depth of the channel, and also serve to confirm that one is dealing with a single wide trench rather than two smaller parallel ones. The height of the floor of the channel as indicated by the deepest boreholes is about I50 feet O.D. in the vicinity of the Withams; the following table summarizes the records of some of the holes shown on Figure I

Archaeology · Geography · Pleistocene · Geological formations and processes · Geology · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Landslides and related hazards · Paleontology

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• Structure, Surface and Drainage in South-East England

  W Wooldridge, S W Wooldridge et al.•Geographical Journal•1956

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