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THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
Field Meeting at Walton-on-the-Naze, Saturday, September 14th, 1889.
A Field Meeting was held at Walton-on-the-Naze mainly for the purpose of
inspecting the remains of the celebrated Red-Crag formation, now, unhappily, fast
disappearing from Essex, under the combined influence of land springs, aerial and
marine denudation, Dr. J. E.Taylor, F.L.S., F.G.S., acting as demonstrator.
The President, Mr. Fitch, Mr. Crouch, and the Secretary also assisted, and Botany
was represented by Mr. J, C. Shenstone, F.R.M.S.
Some of the members went down to Walton on the Friday evening (the head-
quarters for the meeting being "Dorling's Hotel"); Mr. Fitch and Mr. Crouch
coming in a yacht from Maldon, and the others arrived by railway about one
o'clock on Saturday.
Before luncheon, many of the members explored the neighbourhood, visiting
Frinton, with its tiny church (which, until it was "restored," seated only thirty
people), and examining the inroads of the sea on the cliffs of Walton.
Walton-on-the-Naze (ness, promontory), or Walton-le-Soken (soc or soca, Saxon,
implying certain immunities within the liberty), largely shares in the popularity
which the watering-places of the east coast are so rapidly gaining, and the mag-
nificent sea-view and fine sands justify the estimation in which it is held. Among
naturalists, its fossils have earned for it a classical and European reputation, and
the singularly rapid encroachments of the sea, which have changed, and are still
changing, the outlines of the parish, afford a most interesting study in physical
geography.3 Nearly forty years ago Walton was the chief and favourite hunting
ground for collectors of Red-Crag fossils, and it was from this locality that the late
Searles V. Wood obtained such a large number of the beautifully preserved speci-
mens which he figured in his work on the "Crag Mollusca."
The Walton Cliffs also afford sections of the London Clay, with its contained
masses of clayey limestone or Septaria, formerly used to make cement, and nodules
of iron pyrites, from which copperas is manufactured.
The geology of the district is fully detailed in Mr. Whitaker's Memoir to Sheet
48 S.E. Geological Survey.
On the arrival of the main party, the members assembled for luncheon at
Dorling's Hotel, and afterwards an Ordinary. Meeting (the 106th) was held,
Mr. E. A. Fitch, President, in the Chair.
The following were elected members of the Club :—Mrs. J. A. Houblon, Mrs.
J. T.Mann, Messrs. Thomas Dennison, J. Hilliar, J. Archer Houblon, J.P., D.L.,
Rev. W. J. Kenworthy, M.A., Messrs. F. W. Reader, Edward Tann, Joseph
Wakelin, S. Westhorp, and James F. T. Wiseman.
A paper on "The Upper Clay of Walton Naze," by Mr. W. H. Dalton, F.G.S.,
was, in the absence of the author, read by the Secretary (ante p. 223).
Dr. Taylor said that he was inclined to agree with Mr. Dalton's views as to the
nature of the deposit which had commonly been identified with the Chillesford
Clay.
The members then proceeded to the cliffs to explore the remains of the Crag,
Dr. Taylor acting as demonstrator, and after the party had examined the broken
ground due to the slipping away seawards of the rapidly retreating cliffs, a halt was
3 The landslips at the cliffs have recently become of the most alarming character. During the
gale on March 1st and 2nd, 1890, "tons of earth were washed (says the correspondent of the
''Essex County Chronicle ") from the footings of the cliffs all along the coast, and slips have
since taken place near the railway station. . . . The earth that has been washed away during
the last two years covered nearly treble the space that now intervenes between the houses and
the edges of the broken cliffs."