Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway: Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from Worcester to ShrewsburyRandall, John
History
Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway: Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from Worcester to Shrewsbury
Randall, John
Railroads -- England; Severn Valley Railway
In the immediate neighbourhood of these relics of antiquity is the
recently-erected statue to the great Lord Clive, the Townhall, the
Working Man's Hall, the Music Hall, the public news-room, and a group of
other handsome buildings. A passage near the Music Hall leads to the
Museum of the Shropshire and North Wales Natural History and Antiquarian
Society, which no visitor with time on his hands should neglect to visit.
In addition to objects of natural history, it contains others of interest
obtained from Wroxeter, and is open daily from ten to four to visitors
upon payment of twopence. Portions of the town walls, erected in the
reign of Henry III., with one of the ancient towers, are still standing,
and form a pleasant walk. But the grand promenade is the Quarry Avenue,
which, with Kingsland on the opposite side, is the common property of the
inhabitants. The former is a sloping piece of meadow land, intersected
by limes, whose intertwining branches make a fretted archway of living
green, whilst the latter is the spot where the trade pageant, called
Shrewsbury Show, is held. In addition to objects of interest which we
have enumerated, our readers will find materials for observation and
study for themselves; as a further aid to which, we would commend them to
"Sandford's Guide to Shrewsbury."
APPENDIX.
GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT.
We glanced in passing at some few features which could scarcely fail to
attract the attention of the tourist, and a brief notice only of others
will be needed for the geologist. In ascending the river we descend,
geologically speaking, from an upper to a lower series of rocks, which
rocks, in many instances, are covered over by fluviatile and marine
deposits of sand and gravel, containing shells of fish inhabiting our
modern seas. These show how recently the sea must have retired from a
surface so covered with its remains; whilst their position low down in
the valley, and but a little way above the present bed of the Severn,
proves how much more recently the arm of the sea, known as the Severn
Sraits, must have been succeeded by the river. The best places for
collecting these remains along the railway will be found to be in
embankments and cuttings near Buildwas and Coalbrookdale, the latter
having yielded as many as twenty-two distinct species. In cuttings along
the railway, and in their immediate vicinity, will also be found sections
of rocks, from the variegated marls of the New Red Sandstone, of the
Mesozoic, to the silurians, of the Palaeozoic, or Primary Formations. The
coal measures of Coalbrookdale, with their alternating beds of coal,
clay, and iron ore, are rich in specimens of the fauna and flora of the
carboniferous age; the best places for discovering them being the spoil
banks of the mines, where shale, and ironstone nodules, will be found the
most productive. One of the richest beds yielding fossils is the
Penneystone, which may be seen on the surface near Coalbrookdale and
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