Geology Site Account

Site name: Highwood Gravel Quarry, Great Easton, near Dunmow

Grid reference: TL 597 226

Brief description of site:

Highwood Quarry is a working gravel quarry with exposures of Kesgrave (Thames) Sands and Gravels overlain by a thickness of boulder clay (till).

The quarry is private and access is only available with the permission of the quarry operators.

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Details

Highwood Quarry is working the Kesgrave Sands and Gravels (Kesgrave Formation) which were laid down during the early Ice Age by the River Thames when it flowed through north Essex and Suffolk and out across what is now the southern North Sea to become a tributary of the Rhine.

Interesting erratic cobbles and boulders occur in the gravels, including 'exotic' rocks from Cornwall and North Wales (see Lucy 1999).

Above the Kesgrave Formation is a thickness of boulder clay, or till, which was laid down on top of these gravels about 450,000 years ago by an ice sheet during the Anglian glaciation, the most severe cold period of the whole of the Ice Age (Allen 1999).

Highwood Quarry in 2016 (Photo: Ros Smith)