THE FAUNA AND FLORA FROM THE BRICK PIT AT LEXDEN 15
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tion into the Bacterial and Botanical Flora of Caves in South
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Newrick, J. A. (1957). Some thoughts on cave flora. Trans, of the Cave
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Walton, G. A. (1943). The Fauna of Read's Cavern. Proc. of the
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Waterhouse, T. (1903). The Victoria History of the County of Essex.
Volume 1. London.
The Fauna and Flora from the Brick Pit at
Lexden, Essex
By F. W. Shotton, F.R.S., A. J. Sutcliffe, and R. G. West
History of earlier work (F.W.S.)
In 1863, Fisher described in considerable detail the geology of
the Lexden brick pit which lay between Colchester and Lexden
on the south side of the Colne valley (grid reference about
TL 978253). Its deposits appear to be part of a terrace up to a
maximum height of 45 feet above the valley bottom and 60 feet
above sea level, and they consist essentially of brick-earth upon
gravel. In part of the pit, however, a thirty-feet wide channel
filled with peat and organic clay lay between the brick-earth and
the gravel, so that the fullest sequence that can be pieced together
from Fisher's consecutive treatment of the succession would be:—
Brown sandy brick-earth ............... 9 ft.
White clay ................................. 1 ft.
White gravel and yellow clay, thin
Peat .......................................... 1 ft.
Fine grey carbonaceous clay with Channel
rootlets in upper part............... 3 ft. deposits
Coarse clayey gravel ..................... 7 ft. +
(John Brown of Stanway, in a note-book preserved at the British
Museum, records a similar sequence differing somewhat in details
of thickness, as follows:—
Soil ....................................... 1-2 ft.
Light brown clay ........................ 16 ft.
Black mud or peat ..................... 1-2 ft.
Red gravel .............................. 7 ft.
London Clay
From the channel, at the junction of the peat and grey clay,
John Brown obtained a large number of peat-stained bones and
teeth of mammals which Fisher referred to Elephas primigenius