This is a very nerdy post – if you don’t like geology or
care for walls, I don’t mind if you skip over this one!
The Lickey Hills in S Birmingham are made up of a ridge of quartzite. This is a sedimentary rock as opposed to metamorphic, and was laid down in the Cambrian-Ordovician periods when this part of the UK was a) not attached to Scotland, and b) approximately where Australia is now (south of the equator). Despite being a marine rock there are not many fossils in this stone.
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| Cofton Hackett Wall. Nice big chunks of quartizite. |
The Lickey Hills in S Birmingham are made up of a ridge of quartzite. This is a sedimentary rock as opposed to metamorphic, and was laid down in the Cambrian-Ordovician periods when this part of the UK was a) not attached to Scotland, and b) approximately where Australia is now (south of the equator). Despite being a marine rock there are not many fossils in this stone.
Locally this rock was used as roadstone (each parish was
responsible for making and maintaining their roads). There are a number of
disused quarries around the Lickey Hills. When the Frankley and Bartley Green
reservoirs were being constructed, the Halesowen-Rubery railway was extended to
the building site. During works there was a slope failure (I think in Bartley
Res), and quartzite was extracted from Cock Hill Quarry, chucked on the train,
taken to the reservoir, and used to shore up the collapse area - I know this because I once had a lovely chat with a bemused man from Severn Trent water about it all. See, nerd.
The stone has also been used locally for walls, and I have
been on an unofficial lowkey mission to document these walls whenever I see
them. So far I have found a few close to the Lickeys; a couple in Rubery, one
by Cofton Hackett, and one long retaining wall in Rednal. I have also found
some further afield; Northfield has quite a lot down by the library, and my
most recent find is on Bournville Lane by Cadburys!
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| Bournville Lane nr the railway station. This verge also has massive boulders dropped by the glaciers! |
As I build up my collection of photographs of walls (the
finance manager at my new job was quite taken aback when I said I needed to
take a photo…) I plan to map them. There isn’t really a real reason for this,
except the local importance of this stone as a building material. Local history
is all too easily erased!
More information about the geology of the Lickeys can be read here: the Lickey Hills Geo-Champions group work to look after the quarries.
Two more walls were tweeted about a while ago;
Two more walls were tweeted about a while ago;
Wall in #northfield made with lumps of quartzite. Nearest quartzite quarries are up the @LickeyHills! #geology pic.twitter.com/bWMAsi1XKD— Lickey Geo-Champions (@LickeyChampions) 29 January 2017
There is another quartzite wall in Northfield - part of it can be seen by the steps up to the library and the other is in the front garden of the house next door.
Wall made of Lickey Quartzite up Leach Green Lane in Rednal. #urbangeology #geology #birmingham @LickeyHills pic.twitter.com/AWXFbBh3iL— Lickey Geo-Champions (@LickeyChampions) 4 February 2017
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| The map so far. Only four sites have photos. |
