Dr R.J. Reece's report to the Local Government Board on the sanitary circumstances and administration of the Clutton Rural District, and of that portion of the ecclesiastical parish of Peasedown St. John which is situated in the Bath Rural District.

  • Reece, Richard James, 1862-1924.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr R.J. Reece's report to the Local Government Board on the sanitary circumstances and administration of the Clutton Rural District, and of that portion of the ecclesiastical parish of Peasedown St. John which is situated in the Bath Rural District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    2 of the district near Chilcompton and further to the south forms the flanks of the Mendip Hills; the central axis of the range is formed of old red sandstone, with silurian and igneous rocks in places. The beds of the carboniferous limestone on the northern flanks of the Mendips dip at a high angle to the north. They are traversed by numerous joints and fissures. Some of these are filled by deposits of later age, often forming veins of spar and sometimes containing metallic ores; others* which may attain the size of large caverns, remain open and afford a free passage to water. Hence the limestone beds as a whole are freely pervious to water ; this may sink in at one point and reappear at another, and may have undergone but little filtration in its passage through the intervening ground. Above the carboniferous limestone and millstone grit, which latter is in this region not a prominent feature, are the coal measures. These measures extend beneath almost the whole of the Glutton Hural District; they are exposed on the surface over a comparatively limited area about Hallatrow, High Littleton, Temple Cloud, Glutton and Pensford. In the Somerset coalfield the coal measures consist of an upper and a lower series of produc- tive beds separated by a bed of sandstone—the Pennant rock. The coal seams are not very thick, and the beds of the lower series on the southern border of the coalfield are much broken and disturbed. The secondary beds are unconformable to the carboniferous strata, i.e., they lie nearly horizontally across the up-turned edges of the latter; at the junction they take the form of a conglomerate, i.e., a consolidated gravel bed containing fragments of the older rock. The new red marl (Keuper) covers a considerable area, especially in the north-west of the district. Where it rests on the carboniferous limestone, as at Chilcompton, it takes the form of a hard conglomerate (dolomitic conglomerate). At its junction with the coal measures much water, locally called “ red-ground- water;” is apt to be met with in pit-sinking. The lower lias, consisting of alternating bands of clay and limestone, also covers a considerable area in the district. The inferior oolite, a fissured limestone, occurs on the eastern border of the district about Camerton; and with other members of the oolite series forms the hills eastward from that place towards Bath. Industries. The population to the eastern side of the district is engaged mainly in coal mining; the population of the remainder of the district, for the most part, follow pastoral pursuits of which dairy farming is the most important. Cheese and butter are manufactured and large quantities of milk are sent daily to London, Bristol, Cardiff and other centres of population. There is a boot and shoe manufactory at Paulton, some iron ore working at Chew Stoke, and in certain parts of the district stone quarrying is carried on. A 2 15659