Seventeen RGSC participants enjoyed the sunshine and mix of geology and history exploring the countryside around Bath in the footsteps of William Smith on the weekend of 4 and 5 April 2025. Professor Alan Butcher led the trip, which started in the car park just across the road from his house in the delightful village of Norton St Phillip. The first locality was a ploughed field – which immediately yielded some super brachiopods and an echinoid from the Cornbrash Formation. Subsequent localities helped put together the story of how William Smith worked out that the layers of rock had a set order and made his geological map, that developed into the now world famous first geological map of a country published in 1815. The geological story took us to see the fuller’s earth of the Frome Clay Formation and a quarry outcrop of Greater Oolite ‘Bathstone’. On the history side, we visited a beautiful house at Rugbourne Farm where William Smith first lodged when he came to the area to log the mines, a canal viaduct and the house at Tucking Mill, Monkton Coombe that William Smith bought as his ‘country estate’. We also made an excursion – a pilgrimage for some people – to Solsbury Hill of Peter Gabriel’s song fame! On Sunday afternoon, we ventured into Bath and visited the site of William Smith’s shop and the house at 29 Great Pulteney Street, where he first recited the order of the strata.
Alan Butcher is Chief Scientist and Technical Director, Hafren Scientific Group and Visiting Professor at the Open University.
Recent Comments