186
NOTE ON THE UPMINSTER BRICKYARD, 1890.
By W. H. DALTON, F.G.S.
DOURING the Field Meeting on July 26th, the members of the
Club visited the extensive brick and tile works of Mr. Brown
at Upminster, the latter having been in operation 116 years. I
have since had an opportunity of examining the section more care-
fully, and some short notes of what I saw may be of interest.
The pit on the north of the lane opposite "Martin's" shows some
25 feet of horizontally-bedded brown loam, covered with a pebbly
soil averaging 18 inches in thickness, with numerous "pockets" of
gravel intruding into the loam, some of them reaching 6 or 7 feet
from the surface. These testify to the former existence of a bed of
Southern Pit, Upminster Brickyard.
a, Upper loam with grey streaks; b, Upper sand and gravel; c, Lower loam ;
d, Lower sand and gravel,
gravel above the loam, their present position being due to the
modern effect of frost and drought, lowering the relics of the
denuded bed into crevices, which their weight, acting on soft
saturated earth, has expanded into the fantastically-shaped pockets.
On the south side of the lane is another large pit, in which are
seen gravel and sand below the brick-earth. The latter has a less
stony soil than in the northern pit, the gravel-pockets are fewer and
not over two feet deep, and the stones in them are smaller, indicating
perhaps the limit of the upper gravel. The buff colour of the
brick-earth is relieved by many vertical grey streaks, due to the
de-oxidation of iron by organic matter, either in solution or growth,
along fissures in the loam. The bedding-lines show a rise to the