Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
m. They dip very gently southeast, forming a series of rolling plateaus or 'wolds' dis-
sected by narrow, wooded valleys. To the southeast the valleys widen and the land-
scape becomes gentler as the limestone layers slope very gently beneath the clays of
Landscape
B
. In Area 10, Stroud and Cirencester are the main Cotswolds towns, and
they were important centres of the wool industry during the Middle Ages. The fine,
honey-coloured Cotswold Stone houses can still be seen in town centres today, along
with fine 'wool churches', built in the late Middle Ages when the economy of the re-
gion was very strong.
FIG
188.
Main river pathways and flow rates for Area 10.
Around Stroud it is remarkable how much of the highly sloping landscape of the
Cotswold Edge appears to conceal large masses of limestone that have become dis-
placed and moved down-slope, under gravity, as the slopes have been evolving by
erosion. The most vigorous of these collapse movements are likely to have taken place
during the Ice Age under periglacial conditions, when freeze-thaw processes were most
active.
Landscape B: The Mudstone Lowlands of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous
bedrock
The Wiltshire and Oxfordshire Clay Vales form much of the northernmost part of Area
10, extending roughly from Trowbridge, via Cirencester (
b1
), to Oxford (
b3
) along the
path of the Thames. The Vales consist of a broad belt of open, relatively low-lying,
