Geology Site Account

Site name: Royston Road Gravel Pit

Grid reference: TL 4947 3633

Brief description of site:

Pit cut into the hillside exposing glacial gravel made up almost entirely of chalk pebbles. In the 1990s the faces showed solution pipes and ice disturbance structures. The pit is very small with only 2.5 metre high faces.

The pipes are infilled with darker gravel and are due to localised solution of the chalk pebbles (See Sumbler (1996) for an example of this phenomenon in Oxfordshire). The pipes are analogous to the solution pipes found in the Chalk.

The pit is on private land. Access is only permitted with permission of the land owner.

Solution pipes in the Royston Road gravel pit in 1999